Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The speaker is a distant third person who becomes more present in the final line, which states the reason for his grief.
Form and Meter
This is a short poem comprising four rhyming couplets.
Metaphors and Similes
The poem compares green to gold, a metaphor complicated by the dual meaning of gold as both a mineral element and a color; both are precious but for different reasons, as the mineral is rare and the color never lasts in natural light, but instead signifies transitional moments between day and night. The poem also compares Nature's "early leaf" to a flower to show the fleetingness of early spring. Finally, on the broadest scale, the "gold" in "Nothing gold can stay" is a metaphor for goodness and beauty, things the speaker treasures.
Alliteration and Assonance
"Her hardest hue to hold."
Irony
Ironically, "nature's first green" is the most beautiful of seasons, but is also the quickest to pass.
Genre
Nature poetry
Setting
The poem is not narrative, but the descriptions are of nature turning from early spring to later seasons.
Tone
The poem is neutral in tone, never outright revealing the speaker or their emotions, but the neutrality is tinged with sorrow.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is the speaker, and the antagonist is arguably mortality and aging.
Major Conflict
The conflict in this poem is between beauty or vitality and aging, two opposing forces.
Climax
The climax of this poem is in the final line, which is also the title of the poem. "Nothing gold can stay" both summarizes the poem and makes the speaker's grief more palpable.
Foreshadowing
The use of tension and release in the first two couplets foreshadows the turn in the poem to a darker tone than the first and third lines suggest.
Understatement
N/a
Allusions
The speaker alludes to the Garden of Eden in this poem.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Eden is used as a metonym for paradise or beauty. The "first green" is a metonym for early spring, as is the "early leaf." "An hour" is an example of synecdoche; "an hour" stands in for an unspecified longer period of time, such as part of a season, a whole season, or part of a lifetime.
Personification
Nature is personified and described as female. Eden, too, is possibly personified, though this is less clear.
Hyperbole
N/A
Onomatopoeia
N/A
