After+Apple+Picking

1. My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree 2. Toward heaven still, 3. And there's a barrel that I didn't fill 4. Beside it, and there may be two or three 5. Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. 6. But I am done with apple-picking now. 7. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, 8. The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. 9. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight 10. I got from looking through a pane of glass 11. I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough 12. And held against the world of hoary grass. 13. It melted, and I let it fall and break. 14. But I was well 15. Upon my way to sleep before it fell, 16. And I could tell 17. What form my dreaming was about to take. 18. Magnified apples appear and disappear, 19. Stem end and blossom end, 20. And every fleck of russet showing clear. 21. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, 22. It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. 23. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. 24. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin 25. The rumbling sound 26. Of load on load of apples coming in. 27. For I have had too much 28. Of apple-picking: I am overtired 29. Of the great harvest I myself desired. 30. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, 31. Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. 32. For all 33. That struck the earth, 34. No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, 35. Went surely to the cider-apple heap 36. As of no worth. 37. One can see what will trouble 38. This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. 39. Were he not gone, 40. The woodchuck could say whether it's like his 41. Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, 42. Or just some human sleep.

Stephen Roberts Author- Robert Frost Context- 1914, North of Boston. Frost published this work while in England before he moved back to the United States the next year Before moving to England with his family in 1912, Frost had a lived on a farm which could have influenced his writing of this poem. Two years later he published “After Apple Picking.” This poem is typical of Frost because he generally writes his poems that have something to do with the human condition. This poem uses and extended metaphor to tie the apple orchard into life. It is also typical of Frost because it is written in blank verse, all of it having an iambic rhythm, and most of it having five feet for iambic pentameter. The poem does have rhyme but no definite rhyme scheme. Type of Poem- Lyric Synopsis- In this poem, the speaker is tired after picking apples for a long while. The first lines in the poem consist of the speaker talking about his situation: the ladder is still up against the tree and there is still a barrel that has not been filled. The speaker then states that he is done with apple picking and proceeds to talk about sleep. The speaker is exhausted after the hard work and begins to dream. Toward the end of the poem, the speaker wonders if the sleepiness is that of a normal sleep or if it is something deeper than that. Theme- The major theme of this poem is that of sleep and death. Frost shows this theme using many techniques throughout the poem. First, when he is describing the setting he describes the winter season and that it is a world of “hoary grass.” Hoary is defined as gray or white with age. This introduces the theme of death in the poem; during winter everything dies. In the description of the setting, Frost uses imagery to depict a nearly colorless world because all plant life is dead in winter. Symbolism- The tree represents life with branches going in every direction that symbolize the infinite number directions in which a person can take their life. The apples on the branches indicate the choices that a person makes throughout their lifetime. In the poem, each apple that the poet picks is a choice that the poet made throughout his life, while the ones that remain on the tree are choices that the poet never came across because he took a different path that led him to a different branch. The barrels into which the picked apples were placed represent tasks or projects that the poet undertook; the filled barrels represent completed tasks and the empty or partially full are projects that the poet never got to or did not complete during his lifetime. The apples that fell to the ground and were placed into the cider pile, are bad choices that the poet made during life. These apples are bruised and battered and cannot be used for anything good. They are of “no worth” (36). The winter in the poem represents the end of the season of picking apples; it symbolizes the end of the poet’s life. It has very few more apples and life has very few more choices to be made. Imagery- Frost describes the winter describing a colorless setting. Everything is frozen as in winter. The speaker uses imagery when he talks about the “rumbling sound” (25) of apples being put into the cellar. The speaker says that the number of apples is a “thousand thousand” (30) which helps the reader to picture the huge number of apples that had to be picked at the beginning of the harvest.\ Structure- the poem is not broken up into stanzas. It contains lines of varying length with no real pattern. There is rhyme in the poem but no defined rhyme scheme. Thematic structure- the beginning of the poem describes the setting and the circumstances of the speaker. The second part refers to the speaker’s state of fatigue and transitions into the speaker’s dream-like state. Biblical allusion- the ladder leaning up against the tree is a biblical allusion. The ladder is a ladder that Jacob saw in a dream and God was at the top of this ladder and communicated with Jacob. This ladder can tie into the extended metaphor in the poem and can represent the spiritual part of life.