Here are the last three lines of this poem from an earlier draft, at a time when the poem was called "Nothing Golden Stays": And in my mind today, remembering this poem (I don't yet have it committed to memory, but I sure remembered the leaf references), I thought that "Nothing gold can stay" suited the brilliant-gold of the autumn leaves quite well. For me, the poem is about the transient nature of youth, with a hint of loss. It can be taken to mean that nothing can stay gold, but I think it means that nothing can stay young. And then that last, killer line with a fatalistic ring to it, decrees that "Nothing gold can stay." The subsidance of leaves reminds him of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. And then the sixth line is the "turn," where Frost gets to his real topic. In the fifth line, the leaves are just leaves, but use of the word "subsides" shows a settling or falling sort of motion. On the surface, this is a poem about spring, and early growth of plants and leaves, when the first yellow greens appear on the trees. And so it was that I came to today's poem choice: And here in the mountains of New Hampshire, Spring is just now starting to spring: the forsythia, tulips and daffodils are out, the trees are in bud, the snowmelt is racing in the stream outside my window. KellyrfinemanYesterday's post was "The First Violet" by Karl Egon Ebert, which was completely evocative of Spring.
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