While visiting a state park on Monday, I noticed that the spring gold — a color I don’t actually care for — had nearly yielded to green. “Nothing gold can stay, Pony Boy,” I quipped, but then I could not recall the complete poem. Reading aloud from one of the first authoritative sites in my search, I thought that, while movingly beautiful (“In gold as it began / The world will end for man. / And some belief avow / The world is ending now. / The final age of gold…”), the poem seemed unfamiliar. Reading more carefully, I realized that I had recited an early draft of Robert Frost’s work. The poem we know, of course, is only eight lines:
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.
Each April, I promise myself I will read more poetry and perhaps memorize a poem. This year, I successfully kept the first promise: I finished Dante’s Purgatorio. My daughter and I read You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (edited by Ada Limón). And, as part of our dive into Brazilian-Portuguese literature, we also read Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems (Carlos Drummond De Andrade). Now, how to keep the second promise? Like high-impact aerobics and all-nighters, memorization is an activity that was more easily executed when I was younger, so I’ve begun this task gently, rereading and rereading. I think I’ve nearly got it and wonder if I should try another.
Do you memorize poetry? What are your tips?
Nerdishly 