Nothing Gold Can Stay

I looked up this poem because I remember you liked it from "The Outsiders". I never realized how short it was. It's by Robert Frost.

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.

Here's some info on it fromWikipedia:  The poem is featured in both the 1967 novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and the 1983 film adaptation, recited aloud by the character Ponyboy to his friend Johnny. In a subsequent scene Johnny quotes the poem back to Ponyboy through a letter right after he dies. Here's the letter:

"Ponyboy, I asked the nurse to give you this book so you could finish it. The doctor came in a while ago but I knew anyway. I keep getting tireder and tireder. Listen, I don't mind dying now. It was worth it. It's worth saving those kids. Their lives are worth more than mine, they have more to live for. Some of their parents came by to thank me and I know it was worth it. Tell Dally it was worth it. I'm just gonna miss you guys. I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy who wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything is new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be. I want you to tell Dally to look at one. He'll probably think you're crazy, but ask for me. I don't think he's ever really seen a sunset. And don't be so bugged over being a greaser. You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world. I don't think he knows. Your buddy, Johnny."