"After Apple Picking" is a stimulating and thought provoking nature-lyric giving an account of a simple garden activity. But as it often happens in case of Robert Frost, it is possible to read this lyric on a number of different levels. It admits of subtle interpretation which has been brought out in some detail by Cleanth Brooks. He says that the concrete experience of apple-picking is communicated firmly and realistically, but the poem invites a symbolic extension of meaning. The drowsiness which the speaker feeds after the completion of the task is associated with the cycle of seasons. Its special character is emphasised by a bit of magic expressed in line 7-13.
The speaker goes on to speculate playfully on the form that his dreaming will take. It will surely be about apples for his instep still feels the pressure of the ladder rung, and his cars are still full of the rumble of apples rolling into the celler bin. But he returns to the subject of his drowsiness and the phrase 'whatever sleep it is', renews the suggestion that his sleepiness may not be merely ordinary human sleepiness.
The end of labour leaves the speaker with a sense of comletion and fulfilment. Similarly the ice sheet, through which he looks, signals the termination of the harvest, and the summons to the winter sleep of nature.
The poem suggests that sleep is like the sleep of death. It also suggests through the symbols that long sleep must lead to realization of 'ripeness is all' In this peculiarly bold manner Frost has used the couplet in a revolutionary, rather original way, violating the classical and romantic usage of this instrument of expression.
The speaker goes on to speculate playfully on the form that his dreaming will take. It will surely be about apples for his instep still feels the pressure of the ladder rung, and his cars are still full of the rumble of apples rolling into the celler bin. But he returns to the subject of his drowsiness and the phrase 'whatever sleep it is', renews the suggestion that his sleepiness may not be merely ordinary human sleepiness.
The end of labour leaves the speaker with a sense of comletion and fulfilment. Similarly the ice sheet, through which he looks, signals the termination of the harvest, and the summons to the winter sleep of nature.
The poem suggests that sleep is like the sleep of death. It also suggests through the symbols that long sleep must lead to realization of 'ripeness is all' In this peculiarly bold manner Frost has used the couplet in a revolutionary, rather original way, violating the classical and romantic usage of this instrument of expression.