The Outsiders and "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

This week I went on a Ralph Macchio bender (keep your opinions to yourselves, thank you), so this afternoon I was watching The Outsiders, and whadda ya know, one of the main characters starts reciting Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay." I'm not analyzing that poem, but it was a nice coincidence. Here's the scene:


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.

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" is definitely one of Frosts poems containing what Frost called "ulteriority"--there is a plain meaning, and a meaning below that, layered into the poem.

Ironically, for most readers the ulterior message in this poem is it's message about youth, but the characters in The Outsiders, surrounded by grit, poverty, domestic violence, and street gangs are familiar with the ulterior meaning. To these downtrodden urban youths, the poem's pastoral imagery is the elusive component. To them, it is nature that is elusive, and not the quick fading of youth that has already jaded them in their adolescence.



To Johnny, the impact of Frost's word is deep, and as he lays dying (from burns), he imparts them to Ponyboy as his last words.