My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
Notes
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.
40.woodchuck: groundhog, a North American burrowing rodent that hibernates in the winter and--according to folklore--emerges from its burrow on February 2 ("Groundhog Day") and, if it sees its shadow, forbodes six more weeks of winter.
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Comments
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Well it seems to me one way to look at it is - a statement of an old man who knows the end of his life is coming (ie the apple harvest is nearly over)and he tries to sum up and judge how he has spent his time. He has gathered in and tasted many experiences (apples)and could still find a few more (his ladder is still there on the tree) but he knows he has to do something different now. He is sated with experience (too many apples, many of them wasted)and doubts that he has made the best of life, if making the best of it is preparing for death (the winter sleep). Anyway, thats a quick reflection from early morning in London.
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I am trying to figure out the theory behind the After Apple-Picking poem...can anybody help.
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I like this piece. It's solemn and quaint and dosn't venture too far from the picturesque view that it visions.
It doesn't stray from the story, it's a good piece that Frost has written here. -
This poem was read at my 87 year old friends funeral. She died as a complication of Alzheimer's disease. This poem, with "I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight/I got from looking from looking through a pane of glass/ coupled with Mary's dementia and her love of country living and animals just made me weep.
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