Comparison of Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same”
...Eve” (3) interferes with the natural cycle of life for the birds, and changes the purity that they once achieved. Therefore, a tense and complicated tone is achieved because a human being has played a factor in the cycle of life, and has forced the state of perfection to come to an end, whereas in the other poem, nature was the only force that had a hand in the stages of life. The diction of both poems is a major feature that points out the differences in poetic techniques that Frost uses in each poem. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Frost uses informal language, and the diction is extremely simple, which completely contrasts to the formal, complicated diction in “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same.” The poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” is composed of forty words, and no word is longer than two syllables; most are monosyllabic. In “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” the poem is composed of one hundred and ten words, and there are hardly any words that are monosyllabic; most words are between two and four syllables. The meter used in “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is iambic-trimeter, making each line concise and brief, whereas in “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” Frost uses iambic- pentameter to add to the intricate diction of the poem; each line is longer and more detailed. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” the word choice is very common, and the only words that may be unknown to the reader are “hue” (2) and “subsided” (5), depending on the vocabulary of the reader. In “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” the word choice is complicated and difficult to understand. Words and phrases like “garden round” (2), “oversound” (4), “eloquence” (6), and “aloft” (8) make the poem difficult to understand and decipher, adding to its formality. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” there is expressive brevity in the diction, and the shortness of each line contributes to the natural and serene tone. No human force is tampering with the evolution that is bound to occur. In "Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” the tone is forceful and tense because of the complicity of each word and the phrases and meanings those words create. The rhyme scheme in both Robert Frost poems is another difference in the poetic techniques used by the poet. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” there is end rhyme every two lines, like “gold” (1) and “hold” (2), “flower” (3) and “hour” (4), “leaf” (5) and “grief” (6), and “day” (7) and “stay” (8). In “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” the rhyme scheme is less defined and organized; there is end rhyme every other line, like “believe” (1) and “Eve” (3), and “round” (2) and “oversound” (4), and the last two lines rhyme, with “same” (13) and “came” (14). The poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” has more of a defined rhythm, and adds to the simplistic, calming tone of the poem, whereas in “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” the long phrases and alternating rhyme scheme contributes to the tense tone. The change in rhyme scheme in the last lines of the poem also makes the tone more complicated to the reader. The use of syntax in each poem also plays a large role in creating different tones. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” the syntax is easy to read and is clear-cut. Lines like “So dawn goes down to day” (7), meaning the morning has begun, and “Nothing gold can stay” (8), meaning all good things come to an end, are self explanatory and uncomplicated. In the poem “Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same,” the syntax is complicated a...