This short poem written by Robert Frost is remarkable in its depth and beauty. In only eight simple short lines the amazingly talented poet managed to express the very nature of life, the unstable beauty of the world around us. From the poem we can see that the deepest philosophical point does not have to occupy a hundred pages. The poem’s beauty is in its simplicity.
The poem is full of figures of speech and devices that fill every line of it with much more meaning than it seems from the first glance. The figure of speech I decided to choose for this paper is in the first line of the poem, it is a metaphor that says “nature’s first green is gold”.
The metaphor compares the color of the nature to gold. Why does the poet do this? What is his hidden purpose? What is he hinting at? Everyone knows what color gold is, it is most definitely not green. Then why does Robert Frost say that the nature’s first green is gold, is it a paradox? Not at all. Gold is something really precious, really expensive, really valuable and beautiful. The poet is speaking about something in the nature that, according to his idea, is especially valuable. It is nature’s first green. What is meant by the phrase “nature’s first green”? The nature around us starts showing its first green tints when the spring comes.
The first signs of green grass, first young leaves, so small and delicate start to appear when the sun and air become warmer and wake up the mother-nature from her long winter sleep. To my mind, Robert Frost is speaking about this exact time. He calls this time “gold”, to him this is the most precious period; the poet sees and appreciates the beauty of the process when mother-nature gives life to her beautiful offspring.
Every one of us who spent at least some time paying attention to this particular season knows very well how short it is, how quickly the young and delicate leaves and flowers move on with their cycle of life. Nature’s youth does not last long. This is why the poet compares it to gold, meaning that we must value this time of the year just like he did. He wants to share the beauty he noticed with everyone and preserve this message in the poem to make it live longer and reach out to more readers.
If we look at the poem’s title – we see another mention on the gold. This time the poet says that “nothing gold can stay”. What is Robert Frost’s message here? As I noticed before, gold is the symbol of all valuable things. To my mind, the poet wants to share his wisdom with the readers and warn them that gold, or other material valuables, will not last. He wants the readers to learn how to notice precious things around them, like the young spring leaves, for example, he wants us to see the beauty and embrace it, be able to appreciate it, but not to get attached to it, as it “will not stay”. He teaches us to grasp the amazing moments, but be ready to let them go when the time comes, as nothing is forever even the most beautiful and valuable things.