“Nothing Gold Can Stay” is a short poem written by Robert Frost in 1923 and published in The Yale Review in October of that year. It was later published in the collection New Hampshire, which earned Frost the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The poem lapsed into public domain in 2019.
Nothing Gold Can Stay Poem by Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” from New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1923. Public Domain.
Poems / Robert Frost
- The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost, 1916 - Fire and Ice
Robert Frost, 1920 - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost, 1923 - Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost, 1928 - Birches
Robert Frost, 1915 - Mending Wall
Robert Frost, 1914 - The Gift Outright
Robert Frost - Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost, 1923 - Choose Something Like a Star
Robert Frost, 1947 - A Question
Robert Frost - The Oven Bird
Robert Frost - After Apple-Picking
Robert Frost, 1914 - Home Burial
Robert Frost, 1914 - Out, Out—
Robert Frost, 1916 - The runaway
Robert Frost, 1923