“GATHERING LEAVES”

BY ROBERT FROST
Ms Sweeney
By the end of this lesson, you will:
 Gathering Leaves By Robert
Frost
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
What technique?
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise

Of rustling all day What technique?
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

Who/What has eluded his embrace?

But the mountains I raise Technique?
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,

And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.

But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?
Meaning of the poem
◦ Robert Frost describes the process of gathering leaves as a part of
the harvest which gives him no gratification.
◦ The poem takes us through the time consuming process of
gathering leaves.
◦ At the end of the poem, the speaker is left with nothing but a shed
full of dull, weightless leaves.
◦ Yet, the speaker knows that gathering leaves is essential for the
harvest.
First Stanza
◦ He is collecting up the leaves, it is clearly autumn time
as the leaves have fallen.

◦ “No better than spoons”- take up as much as a spoon

does, very small tools.

◦ “Are light as balloons”- spent precious time collecting

the leaves perhaps he feels exhausted and light just like
the balloon ?
◦ Leaves weight virtually nothing.
 ◦ Going around with his bag and he is still
collecting the leaves which leads to a lot of
rustling and noise which disturbs the animals
and they run away.
Second Stanza
◦ His noise could mirror the noise the animals
make.
 Third Stanza
◦ Refers to “mountains” of leaves that he has collected.

◦ “flowing over my arms and into my face”- getting annoyed with the leaves
now at this stage and autumn.

◦ The leaves are flowing all over the place, making it hard for him to do his
job, avoiding him

◦ Personification is seen here. He details how the leaves are

trying to avoid his embrace and care and instead hit him in
the face.
Fourth Stanza
◦ “Again and again”- he has done this for some time, and he
will continue to do so.

◦ “And what have I then?”- he is not really sure of the value

of all the leaves he has collected.
Fifth Stanza
◦ He begins to talk about how the beautiful
colours once were, are now fading since they
fell off the trees and landed on “earth”.
Sixth Stanza
◦ “Next to nothing for use”- the leaves are useless, they are in the
shed. He can’t use them for anything.

◦ “But a crop is a crop,” therefore he must gather the leaves as the

harvest won’t happen unless he does so, there is no escaping it.

◦ “And who’s to say where

The harvest shall stop?”- people will still collect the leaves, to let
the grass grow. So will the harvest ever stop?
 Poetic techniques

Rhyme Repetition Simile

Imagery Personification Metaphor