After Apple-Picking Blog Entry

In my opinion, Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” is about a man experiencing the last minutes of his life, feels this “sleep” coming over him, and is thinking about all the things he’s left undone. Several ways he has eluded to this is the ladder, acting as a pathway between Earth and Heaven, and the higher he climbs, the closer he gets. Also, the way he talks about things he hasn’t done, such as the “barrel that I didn’t fill”, the apples he dropped which were then made into cider “as of no worth”, and the fruit he’ll never “cherish in hand, lift down and not let fall” as if he is reminiscing. I think he was saying that he’s ready for death to come for him when he states he’s had too much of apple-picking, and that he’s tired. At the end, the word sleep becomes like a chant before “the long sleep” as if he’s counting sheep, or something to that effect, even though he is still futilely wishing that it’ll just be some “human sleep”.