Activity Read Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” Then answer the questions that follow to analyze how the poem uses figurative language to convey a message.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
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.

Part A
The first line of the poem contains the phrase “green is gold,” which has the structure of a metaphor. This metaphor links two different colors. What is the symbolic meaning of the colors green and gold? What does this metaphor say?