Nothing Gold Can Stay is a short poem of eight lines that contains subtle yet profound messages within metaphor, paradox and allegory. It is a compressed piece of work in which each word and sound plays its part in full.
Written when Frost was 48 years old, an experienced poet, whose life had known grief and family tragedy, the poem focuses on the inevitability of loss - how nature, time and mythology are all subject to cycles.
As with many a Frost poem, close observation of the natural world is the foundation for building poetic truths, inside of which lie hidden messages and ideas.
When the leaves start to show in the season of spring they are perceived as gold, but soon turn to familiar green and before too long they're fading as victims of time.
So it's possible to pick out three distinct associations:
the season of spring - holding on to precious color.
time - and the pace of life.
Eden - how humans experience grief and shame.
Macbeth is feeling invincible in this scene. His mania has risen to a level where he feels he cannot be touched or hurt until Birnam wood comes to his castle, which he believes to be an impossibility. He has taken the witches' prophecies and held them in his mind as if they put him on top of the world. He carelessly yells at his staff and demands that the doctor just simply fix Lady Macbeth. His mood is summed up at the end of the scene when he says "I will not be afraid of death and bane / <span>Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane". This shows that he will never be afraid of death or being hurt until the forest comes to him.</span>
