Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost (1874–1963) · New Hampshire · Grace Notes · 1923

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.

Where this text comes from

First published in New Hampshire (1923). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2] [3]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-frost_new-hampshire, new-hampshire.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L8.

Cite this poem

Robert Frost (1874–1963). “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” First published in New Hampshire (1923). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-frost/nothing-gold-can-stay/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Robert Frost