My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree <br />Toward heaven still. <br />And there's a barrel that I didn't fill <br />Beside it, and there may be two or three <br />Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. <br />But I am done with apple-picking now. <br />Essence of winter sleep is on the night, <br />The scent of apples; I am drowsing off. <br />I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight <br />I got from looking through a pane of glass <br />I skimmed this morning from the water-trough, <br />And held against the world of hoary grass. <br />It melted, and I let it fall and break. <br />But I was well <br />Upon my way to sleep before it fell, <br />And I could tell <br />What form my dreaming was about to take. <br />Magnified apples appear and reappear, <br />Stem end and blossom end, <br />And every fleck of russet showing clear. <br />My instep arch not only keeps the ache, <br />It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. <br />And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin <br />That rumbling sound <br />Of load on load of apples coming in. <br />For I have had too much <br />Of apple-picking; I am overtired <br />Of the great harvest I myself desired. <br />There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, <br />Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall, <br />For all <br />That struck the earth, <br />No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble, <br />Went surely to the cider-apple heap <br />As of no worth. <br />One can see what will trouble <br />This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. <br />Were he not gone, <br />The woodchuck could say whether it's like his <br />Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, <br />Or just some human sleep.<br /><br />Robert Lee Frost<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-apple-picking-3/
