After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost
Analysis
"After Apple-Picking" is a poem written by Robert Frost. This poem is about wishing for something better or perhaps longing for something that isn't there. It could also be seen as a prayer to God. In this, the author is saying that he is looking towards heaven and hoping his trees will have more apples (offer him a better life).
This poem is made up of two long stanzas with a rhyme scheme of ABBACCDEDFEFGHHHGIJKLMJ in the first stanza.
Poem
After Apple-Picking 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.
Next: An Old Man's Winter Night
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Find out more information about this poem and read others like it.
Nationality
American
Literary Movement
19th Century
Subjects
Religion, Longing, Nature, God
Find out more information about this poem and read others like it.
Nationality
American
Literary Movement
19th Century
Subjects
Religion, Longing, Nature, God