Today's poem is one I memorized when I was in high school. Why? For the very obvious reason that it's in The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, which is still one of my top favorite books of all time. You can read this poem here.
Discussion Questions:
1. What poetic devices do you notice in this poem? (It's okay to quote from the poem in your answers -- I just can't share the whole thing here.)
2. What is the theme or point of this poem, do you think?
1. Alliteration - Green and gold; her, hardest, hue, and hold; so and sank; dawn, down, and day. And there's kind of personification too, for nature. "HER hardest hue to hold" and "HER early leaf's a flower". I don't know if that counts for personification, though.
ReplyDeleteYes, very good. That's definitely personifying nature as a female who has/owns/makes things.
Delete2. It's about how as time goes on, the young, bright things fade, like how gold is the 'hardest hue to hold' and 'dawn goes down to day', so the beautiful things don't last forever. And it's true with people, too, like when we're young everything is bright like dawn but as we get older, the 'dawn goes down to day' and it's not fresh anymore.
ReplyDeleteYup.
DeleteWatch me fail to not basically copy The Outsiders
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I never clicked your link because I have the whole thing memorized too 😜
Well, The Outsiders does pull out the meaning pretty well, so that's hard not to echo.
DeleteNice! I used to memorize a lot of poetry. I should try to do that again.
1. Lots and lots of couplets! Alliteration in almost every line, too. Green, gold; hardest, hue, hold. I think there's assonance with the alliteration in that line, "So dawn goes down to day", since dawn and down are similar sounds, besides just them both starting with d.
ReplyDeleteYes! Very good.
Delete2. Well I guess the point is the title, "Nothing Gold Can Stay." He gives examples of gold not staying using things in Nature. But then he talks about the garden of Eden, so I think he probably wasn't just talking about the gold/good things in nature, but also just anything good in life. Everything passes away, especially monetary riches. But the thing is, he kind of leaves room for hope. Even though leaves fall every year, and those same leaves will never be seen again, the next beautiful leaf, the next beautiful flower in the spring, the next beautiful day will always come again. So even if the particular good things that happen to us throughout our lives pass away, God continues to bless us with new and beautiful things, or things we're comfortable with, like autumn, or the first flower in spring, or a beautiful sunrise every morning, even if every time it's a little different, it's still, for all intents and purposes, the same. But still, we recognize, that, in fact, nothing gold CAN stay.
ReplyDeleteYes -- we can't grasp and hold onto and keep any one moment or sensation or perfect new thing, but they do get replaced by God continually, and that's very comforting.
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