By Ben and Zo
Nature’s first green is gold, (1)
East into the estuary. (2)
Her hardest hue to hold. (3)
To fool the unwary. (4)
Her early leaf’s a flower; (5)
She is statue-still and staring, (6)
But only so an hour. (7)
Dead and lost overboard. (8)
Then leaf subsides to leaf. (9)
Kept a bone, as a keepsake. (10)
So Eden sank to grief, (11)
Winds through London like a snake. (12)
So dawn goes down to day. (13)
I need to see the world (14)
Nothing gold can stay. (15)
Straining to catch her words. (16)
Introduction
First and foremost, it should be acknowledged that the poem that has been used as the base of this cut-up poem is entitled “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” written by the prominent poet, Robert Frost in 1923. In brief, this poem concerns the impermanent beauty of the natural world, where everything will decay as time flies, including leaves, flowers and even humans. Based on our analysis, it can be found that the main message of this poem is that nothing beautiful or precious can remain forever in this world. This thus sparks some ideas to create something meaningful about nature by adding some twists to amplify the seriousness of this matter, which acts as a direct warning to humankind. After several readings, we have found an ideal short story pertaining to the “lost” of beloved one, which correlates to the theme, the “transience of life.” The short story was named, “Down to a Sunless Sea” produced by Neil Gaimanand, published by the British newspaper The Guardian on March 22nd 2013. In brief, this story is about a mother who has to endure the great pain of the loss of husband and son due to their new mother, the sea.
Nature is undoubtedly one of the primary sources that is very valuable to human beings. However, in this modern age, human beings have abused their power by destroying nature for their own benefits. The poet has expressed his great admiration to nature in the beginning of this newly cut-up poem, when he praised and appreciated the beauty of nature that once looked so majestic. As the poem continues, the poet expresses his frustration about how nature’s beauty is slowly fading away due to human’s selfishness.
Analysis
Nature’s first green is gold, (1)
East into the estuary. (2)
The first stanza greets the readers with a statement that is very odd and questionable to a certain degree. The author states that the first green color of nature is gold. If we were to take that literally, does the author want to say that the color green is actually gold? Questions like these will help readers to understand what the author is trying to emphasize in the writing. Even the first line in this poem has been foregrounded by the author, and it is a very important clue to the subsequent lines. The technique used by the author for the first line is semantic deviation, because “green is gold” does not make any sense in the minds of a normal person, especially those who have a lot of knowledge about the color spectrum. From a different perspective, gold can be described as a symbol of something that is highly valuable. Additionally, the writer uses the term “nature’s first green” because it refers to the color transition of the season, from winter, whitened by the snow, to spring, where the leaves begin to unleash their full green color. Hence, the author is trying to emphasize that spring is something that is very precious, because the green plants and colorful flowers all together contribute to nature's beautiful radiant. In line 2, the author, without any context, begins with "east into the estuary”. Since it has no direct context from the previous line, this means the whole line is a metaphor. To be clear, it describes the water’s movement that flows east straight into the estuary. If we pay heed to the author's choice of word, the estuary is one of the most productive ecosystems of the earth. They work to maintain water quality by natural filtration, with the help of microbes that break down organic matter and sediments that bind pollutants. Hence, estuaries are metaphors to nature itself, working hard to maintain its well-being, while humans on the other hand, are like flowing water that only brings “pollutants” or damage to nature.
Her hardest hue to hold. (3)
To fool the unwary. (4)
Undoubtedly, the use of “her” is a personification towards nature itself, which people commonly refer to as "mother nature". This line may also be a continuation to the meaning of the preceding line. The author uses the term "hue" to denote many things that are related to nature, such as trees, flowers, leaves, hills, which altogether creates a majestic hue before human’s eyes. Hence, it is emphasized here that mother nature is working very hard to maintain the beauty of that hue. In line 4, “the unwary” refers to human beings. Fundamentally, man and nature are supposed to compliment each other. Ironically, humans in this present time are too greedy, pursuing their ambitions to achieve worldly advancement. Without any fear or worry, they cut down the trees, leveled the hills, and polluted the rivers for the purpose of the nation's development. Since the nature seems able to withstand the torture, humans are not afraid to repeat the same thing again, because no matter how bad the damage is done, they believe that nature will somehow survive and continue its normal cycle, and that is why humans were “fooled” by the remaining hues that nature can offer. While it is partly true that nature will somehow survive, they are constantly fighting to withstand man’s misconduct, and they have reached the point of exhaustion. Today, nature is not as majestic as before, and the leaves are not as green as they used to be 100 years ago, especially in the highly developed cities. The sound parallelism of “estuary” and “unwary” might suggest the clash between nature and humans, which is inevitable.
Her early leaf’s a flower; (5)
She is statue-still and staring, (6)
The author deviates the reader's attention by using the highly ambiguous term, which is "early leaf". It can be understood here that "early" refers to the early days of this world, where humans are yet to be bothered with the needs of skyscrapers, fancy housing estates, highways that connect borders, and many other developmental projects. In other words, nature is yet to be contaminated by humans' frailty, and that is why they were so pure and beautiful like a flower as described by the author, which acts as a direct metaphor to nature's early leaves. Aside from that, the author also describes how nature is like a statue, sitting still and staring at the destruction that has been done by mankind.
But only so an hour. (7)
Dead and lost overboard. (8)
In line 7, the author’s intention is to raise his concern that nature cannot have a long and pleasant life anymore. “An hour” is a mere meiosis to nature’s lifespan, which emphasizes the idea that human’s threat will not stop any sooner, that it will only shorten their life. After stretching the lines, the author finally used the word “dead”, which is a direct warning to nature. When construction machineries like bulldozers, excavators and cranes come to them, it’s about time that they will cease to exist. The author uses the term "overboard" to indicate somewhere that is very isolated and far from human habitation, the place where no one knows. On top of that, the rhyme scheme in this second stanza is deviated, “Flower” in line 5 does not rhyme with “overboard” in line 8, which violates the strict sound pattern of ‘abab’ that is used in every other stanza. This violation might suggest that mankind went too far in exploiting nature's resources for their personal interest, and this had created a flaw in the natural world order.
Then leaf subsides to leaf. (9)
Kept a bone, as a keepsake. (10)
Next, stanza 3 of this poem entails the idea of ephemerality due to humans' immorality. In line 9, the first word 'leaf' symbolizes the flower or the beauty meanwhile the second leaf represents the true leaf. This means that the flowers turn into leaves that fall to the ground when the season changes. This indirectly signifies that the beauty of nature cannot remain permanently due to deforestation, which is set forth in the next line. The phrase ‘kept a bone’ in line 10 visualizes the real setting of the forest after it has been cut down by humans in the name of ‘development’. The word ‘bone’ implies the roots of the trees that have been left by a human after logging. The author uses the word ‘bone’ to liken the dead tree to the human body when they die. Both will be left decaying under the earth. Another possible interpretation is that bone also denotes fossils, which is evidence of prehistoric life. When all the trees have gone, the only thing that humans can do is just digging the history as a memorial. In the future, the roots will be turned into a ‘keepsake’ or memory for the humans to remember that nature used to exist.
So Eden sank to grief, (11)
Winds through London like a snake. (12)
Then, the author suddenly alludes to the biblical ‘Garden of Eden’ in line 11 and 12. The use of intertextuality here is to awake the memories of human origin. This is because humans have forgotten that the downfall of humans is because of misconduct. Thus, this indirectly reminds humans that their greediness can cause history to repeat if nobody is willing to take care of the earth. Other than that, it can be believed that the author also questions the religious man as every religion has a perception that nature is a divine gift from God, ergo should be treated as such. The author wants religious men to perform their duty to voice out their concerns and protect the earth from destruction instead of sleeping on it. In line 12, the author reveals the humans’ misconduct as well as mistreatment towards the earth. The keyword here is London, which symbolizes the development of industrialization. The author has opted for the word ‘winds’ to show the rapidness of development as well as destruction done by a human. Interestingly, the words such as ‘winds,’ ‘London’, ‘like’ and ‘Snake’ produce an effect of lightness and quickness to show how fast the destruction can be done. On top of that, the phrase ‘like a snake’ symbolizes a devil or Satan who loves to ruin the purity of divinity. This relates to the story in the Bible, Genesis 3, where a serpent tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Again, this story is akin to the scenario that is currently happening to our nature. Today, every country competes in building the highest skyscrapers just for the sake of glory. The victims are nature. This is because everyone is falling into the trap of demons just like Eve fell into the trap of the serpent. Note that the sibilance of "So,’ ‘sank,’ ‘winds,’ and ‘snake’ evokes a hissing sound that evokes the sound of the serpent as if it is slithering around the reader. This is to imply that the reason lying behind the downfall of Eden as well as the earth is due to the whispering of evil.
So dawn goes down to day. (13)
I need to see the world. (14)
In the last stanza, the point of view has been altered from the third-person to the first-person based on the narrator’s perspective. The reason is that the author believes that the message alone is not enough to make people realize the importance of nature. Hence, he decides to immerse himself in the poem to show his seriousness or solemnity in solving this issue. In line 13, the author uses the negative word ‘down’ for something positive like ‘day,’ This implies that everything in this world has started to decay or deteriorate, even the light of the sun could not illuminate the earth. Apart from that, these two negative words can be represented as the mood of the author where he is really heartbroken watching the loss of the green every single day. In the next line, the author literally means that he needs to see the world. The word ‘I’ has been foregrounded because it is the first time that the author uses the first-person pronoun. The word ‘world’ can be symbolized as nature. Hence, it can be assumed that the whole stanza is the narrator's point of view on nature. To add, there are numbers of /d/ and /t/ t/sound produced in these two lines like ‘dawn,’ ‘down,’ ‘day,’ ‘need,’ ‘to,’ and ‘the’. These two sounds were known as plosive and recognized as the least sonorous. These explosive sounds are used to represent the rebellion of the author towards the irresponsible man who destroys the beauty of nature. Apart from that, these sounds also produce a revolting and dismal effect on the reader.
Nothing gold can stay. (15)
Straining to catch her words. (16)
Unfortunately, there is no more beauty of nature that the poet can view from his spot, probably the city. The reason is that every heart and soul of the ancient tree has been replaced viciously with something “cold” like a skyscraper. The word ‘Gold’ has been repeated as a part of the metaphor in the closing of the poem. It can be implied as to the beauty or purity of nature since it is a common symbol that associates with happiness or prosperity such as the “golden age.” However, it should be noted that there is a difference between both stanzas as the author has no longer described the beauty of nature in the last stanza. The reason is that the beauty of nature is fading away, as it has been consumed by humans’ greediness. This emphasizes that nothing in this world could last forever due to the existence of humans. In line 16, the author tries to hear the sound of nature, but nothing can be heard. The author adopts the word ‘straining’ to illustrate his struggle in listening to the sound of nature like birds chirping, psithurism, and river flows. That is why the author ends the poem to show that he is trying to hear nature until now but fails. This concludes that the sound of nature has already gone, replaced by ‘artificial sounds’ like engine, construction, and instrumental. Again, the major device of the poem, personification, has been repeated. The word ‘her words’ in line 16 represents the natural sound. The author provides nature with human qualities as if nature can talk to humans asking for help. This reason is simple because humans never understand nature literally and figuratively.***
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