Shakespeare and Frost: Stay Gold

From the Poetry Foundation:

Sonnet LXV: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
   O, none, unless this miracle have might,
   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.


This one reminded me of a Frost poem I hadn't read until just recently (U of T):


Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Nothing Gold can Stay

              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.

I suppose this means I shall have to read The Outsiders.