Life and Nature - Scf - State College of Florida

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“After Apple Picking”
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
27-29: The speaker repeats what he said
before about “having enough” and “being
overtired,” putting emphasis on the words.
Picking apples all day everyday might become
tedious for the speaker, which is why he is
tired of doing it. He has lost his passion.
30-36: In the previous lines, the apples were
literal, but now they are figurative. They
represent the dreams, memories, experiences
a person has over time. At first you are gentle
with them and cherish them, but after years
and years, it becomes much easier to let a few
of them fall here and there because not all
dreams can come true or some memories wear
out.
40-42: This refers back to the hibernation in
the beginning of the poem. The speaker
does not know when exactly he will die, so he
wonders that when he goes to sleep next if it
will be like hibernation and never wake up, or if
he will wake up.