After+Apple-Picking

= After Apple-Picking = // Chapter 4; page 613 //

By: Robert Frost


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 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">What form my dreaming was about to take. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Magnified apples appear and disappear, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Stem end and blossom end, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">And every fleck of russet showing clear. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">My instep arch not only keeps the ache, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">And I keep hearing from the cellar bin <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">The rumbling sound <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Of load on load of apples coming in. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">For I have had too much <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Of apple-picking: I am overtired <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Of the great harvest I myself desired. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">For all <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">That struck the earth, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Went surely to the cider-apple heap <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">As of no worth. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">One can see what will trouble <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Were he not gone, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">The woodchuck could say whether it's like his <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Or just some human sleep. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Reading by Robert Frost <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">~

Robert Frost:
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> Born: March 26, 1874 Deceased: January 29, 1963
 * Lived in San Francisco, California until he was eleven
 * After his father died of tuberculosis, Frost and his mother and sister moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts sharing a house with his grandparents
 * Frost's first poem "My Butterfly: an Elegy" led to his success
 * He had six children; two of whom died and the others developing mental illnesses.
 * Took up poultry farming
 * Moved to England, where he and his wife believed publishers would be more willing to take on poets
 * When war broke out, he returned to the United States were he was extremely popular
 * Settled in a farm in New Hampshire and taught poetry in various colleges
 * At the age of 86 he was honored to recite a poem to John F. Kennedy

**Common Misinterpretation**: Frost was living a common country life in New England as portrayed by his poems
Frost's poems were usually full of implications and deeper meanings.

= Literal Meaning: =
 * After harvesting apples a man is tired and falling asleep; **"The scent of apples: I am drowsing off"**
 * He reflects on what he has done that day
 * The speaker picks up a sheet of ice and looks through it
 * He is sick of apple-picking and did not finish; **"I have had too much/ Of apple-picking: I am overtired/ Of the great harvest"**
 * He thinks that he will dream of apples that night; **"And I could tell/ What form my dreaming was about to take./ Magnified apples appear and disappear"**
 * Apples he dropped would lose their value and be thrown into the pile to made into cider

= Theme: = = Imagery: = = Form and Meter: = = Emotion: =
 * **Dissatisfaction in Life**: The speaker may have been looking forward to apple-picking all summer, but now it is too much to deal with; Represents something someone loves to do but is exhausting and requires effort (Like a overworked basketball player or a poet writing poems for a living) **"I am overtired/ Of the great harvest I myself desired" "There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,/ Cherish"** Unfulfilled achievements could be represented through empty barrels: "**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"**
 * **Sin:** The apples who fell could represent those who have sinned and have earthly flaws, only to be deemed worthless.
 * **Death:** Apple- picking season is followed by winter, closely associated with death. A woodchuck's winter hibernation is also mentioned metaphorically relating to death. Sleep is mentioned numerous times and the speaker talked about all he could have done in life ("Thousands of fruit to touch/ Cherish") The speaker fears death because he thinks of all the positive accomplishments he has had (perfect apples) and the negative aspects of his life (bruised apples). He fears what type of sleep he will have whether it is troubled by his failures or by the successes.
 * Imagery skews the meaning of the work from a pleasant activity to a sort of nightmare.
 * **"The scent of apples"**
 * **"Looking through a pane of glass/ I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough"** It is not a pane of glass, but a sheet of ice through which he looks. This could represent a distortion of how a person views the world
 * **"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"** Nightmare effect
 * The poem could be interpreted as a skewed dream, it is not known where the dream begins or if it is a dream at all.
 * **"Spiked with stubble"**
 * Entire work is an extended metaphor for another activity.
 * No rhyme scheme, but occasional random rhymes
 * No stanzas
 * The speaker is most likely a hard-working man who lives on a farm with an orchard
 * Regretful (missing chances in life)
 * Reminiscent (as he passes on)
 * Bitter (Apple picking has become too much for him)
 * Thoughtful (Expecting what is to come in his future)

“After Apple Picking.” Word Press. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2015. “Robert Frost.” Academy of American Poets. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2015. “Robert Frost.” Bio. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.