After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is on the 2015 HSC poetry list.

My eldest stepson is studying 6 of his poems (rather reluctantly) with his class.

The major theme they're exploring is discovery (or self-discovery).

Robert Frost was born 26th March 1874 and died 1963. 

He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times (1924, 1931, 1937 & 1943). 

He was a special guest at JFK's inauguration, where he wrote a poem especially for the occasion.

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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. 

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More self-discovery from Robert Frost!

Is his ladder the bridge to the heavens? Is he questioning his faith? Spiritual discovery?

Is it about aging & resting? Growing old & weary? 

Autumn to winter - middle age to old age? With a renewal or regrowth on the way?

Does he realise he's aging/dying? Looking back on his life - with regrets? or disappointment?

Apples (biblical) - loss of innocence?

Perhaps he is searching for wisdom - picking the fruit of knowledge? Inner discovery?

Or harvesting - storing away the knowledge he has already accumulated? Pondering the choices of his youth?

What does it mean that he is dreaming or in that dream-like, almost asleep stage? 

Is this his sub-conscious speaking? His natural state?