Point of View

“Nothing Gold Can Stay” is written from the point of view of the third-person omniscient. This perspective is significant within the poem for how unobtrusive it is. As a narration style, the third-person omniscient provides information that is unaltered by the speaker’s knowledge or feelings. The narrator of “Nothing Gold Can Stay” sees all, a fact stressed by both the narration style and their perception of small changes in the natural world. The narrator then connects these changes to humanity’s fall from “Eden,” demonstrating the speaker’s broad knowledge base in addition to their perceptiveness.

As a result of this omniscience, the poem’s drama derives not from the narrator’s relationship to the actions of the poem, but from those actions themselves. The speaker discusses the changes in the natural world in a mature and informed manner, one connected to a feeling...