Explication of “Gathering Leaves,” and Relation to King Lear

Robert Frost’s poem Gathering Leaves, reflects on Autumn’s necessary task of raking. The speaker opens the piece with tactile imagery relating to “bags full of leaves,” and utilizing a simile that states they are “light as balloons.” Frost continues to use imagery but in the auditory sense in that he discusses the sounds associated with raking and compares it to “rabbit and deer / Running away.” The following stanza is one that relates best to Shakespeare’s King Lear in that it discusses nature’s power and how it is something the speaker cannot harness, even though it is a part of him. Gathering Leaves’ narrator claims “But the mountains I raise / Elude my embrace, / Flowing over my arms / And into my face.” This individual finds that nature’s great power, or “mountains,” are out of his reach even though they touch upon his “arms” and face.” This image is very similar to Act 3 of Lear when the King is standing out in the storm and challenging the harsh weather. In Scene 2, Lear cries “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!” (3.2.1) and a close-reading proves that the storm’s effects mirror the chaos occurring in Lear’s life. This is akin to Gathering Leaves in that following the assertion of Nature’s power the narrator compares raking to the futility of life. Frost writes “I may load and unload / Again and again / Till I fill the whole shed, / And what have I then?” thus depicting the repetitiveness that is raking and it’s lack of accomplishing anything substantial. The speakers even discusses the uselessness of the leaves being raked saying they are “nothing for weight,” “nothing for color” and “nothing for use.” Ultimately the narrator comes to the conclusion that leaves are a harvest themselves, albeit a useless one.