Nothing Gold Can Stay

This time of year, I can't help but think of Robert Frost's poem Nothing Gold Can Stay and the professor who required I memorize it as a college sophomore. Since then, my dear professor passed away and I've learned the true meaning of the poem. I loved teaching this poem to my middle school students and having them write about a time in their lives when they learned that nothing gold can stay. This is for you, Professor Kuiper, and yes, I still have it memorized:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
As leaf subside to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down today,
Nothing gold can stay.