Summary

“Nothing Gold Can Stay” is a relatively short poem composed of a single stanza only eight lines long. The poem’s simplicity is mirrored in its diction and syntax, both of which are fairly straightforward. The poem begins by centering the visible changes its speaker observes in the natural world. First of these is color, the focus of the poem’s first two lines. The speaker states that nature’s initial color is “gold,” a “hue” which soon changes into “green” (1-2). In lines three through five the speaker describes a change in which parts of nature are blooming, beginning with a “flower” that soon “subsides to leaf” (3-5). Line six marks a change in the poem, continuing its discussion of change but moving away from the immediate natural world with its mention of “Eden” (6). The poem re-centers visual natural change (“dawn” to “day...