Stay Gold

I recently saw the impressive show “The Outsiders” in New York City. In the show there is a poem by Robert Frost that plays an important part. The show even derived one of its baselines from it. Stay Gold. Robert Frost is one of the most celebrated figures in American poetry, He was the author of numerous poetry collections, including New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923). Born in San Francisco in 1874, he lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont. He died in Boston in 1963.

Here is the poem.

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.

I love how the show turns this around and calls upon the main character (and us all) to stay gold. It’s a reminder to find beauty in the simple things and it moved me. Here is the song. (Oh, and do go see the show, it’s special.)