Nothing Gold Can Stay Analysis

Words: 994
Pages: 4

“Life is Only Available in the Current Moment” With each passing day in ones life, ephemerality is slowing consuming youth, time and vitality, doing so, under the radar to most. It is only a matter of time until the realization hits one, which they are not getting any younger, there health is deteriorating and they are not getting any time back. Shown through Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, William Butler Yeats (WBY) “Sailing to Byzantium”, and Dylan Thomas “Fern Hill” the realization is exemplified has registered a unified resonating theme to the authors, a message that nothing good lasts forever. Ephemerality is shown of three different mediums across the works - time, youth, and vitality – with each medium translating specific …show more content…
WBY generation is dying, and thus WBY feels out of place in current society. Shown with the line, “The salmon-falls, the mackerel crowded seas”, life around WBY is being renewed and vital, yet for WBY, he has seen it all before, there is nothing to look forward too or feel passion about. The line, “An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick”, WBY compares an aged man, to a stick to hang a coat, which, - like someone who’s youth is fleeting, - serves minimal purpose in todays society. WBY expresses his desire to leave this country, - that it is no country for old men - and become an eternal force. The lines, “Sages standing in God’s holy fire” to “be the singing-masters of my soul” and “Consume my heart away”, “into the artifice of eternity”, re-enforce my analysis. WBY is inferring how he does not want to live anymore, how he feels out of place in this world and desires nothing more than to become a golden bird watching over his utopia, the city of Byzantium, a city where time stands still, where there is no past, present, or future. WBY shows how even feelings and passions can die, and become meaningless, showcasing further how feeling alive, motivated and vital does not last