This poem transcends the literal picking of apples through the use of metaphors. Although it is not clear if the “long sleep” refers to death, there are strong connotations in the poem that point out winter imagery, and in the metaphoric language of seasons, winter has strong associations with death. Hints of winter in the poem are prevalent in the poem: The scent of apples is "the essence of winter sleep"; the water in the trough froze into a "pane of glass"; the grass is "hoary". Moreover, the phrase “essence of winter sleep” has creates sense of peacefulness in the poem. Thus, it is possible to interpret the rest that the poet finally enters into as death. While there is no doubt that the speaker in this poem has had a very productive and worthwhile life, one gets the impression that there is still an empty feeling in his life, of which he can do nothing about. In lines 3-6, he reflectively states, “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”. Here, it is necessary to expand the idea of the apples as a metaphor for life, and say that they could perhaps also represent missed life experiences. The speaker's inner resources give out before the outer resources are entirely collected. In addition, the poems subject itself “Apple-Picking” is a symbol in itself for life’s work. In the poem when Frost says Apple Picking, not only does he mean the literal gathering of the fruit, but also life’s work in which every human participates. On the other hand, the poet speaks only of "two or three apples" remaining, and these only "may" be left over. Do we detect satisfaction, then? The speaker has done all that was within his power; what's left is the result of minor, inevitable human imperfection. Is this, then, a poem about the rare skill of knowing when to quit honorably? The poem opens with a kind of regretful tension - “My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree toward heaven still” could perhaps portray the persona standing on the earth but looking upward, suspended between the real and the dream world. “And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill” - The words “still”, and phrase “barrel I didn’t fill” suggest that even though the persona has already stopped what he had been previously doing - picking apples and filling barrels - his ladder has not been touched where he last left it “sticking through a tree,” giving the reader a sense of incompleteness, as though the persona has not fulfilled his tasks. This would then reinforce the degree of regretfulness that the persona feels, which is certainly is more acute that that of merely failing to literally fill all the barrels with apples. As the persona looks back on his life, he sees unfinished tasks, and thus he feels regret, which parallels the apples to the experiences that he has missed in life.
The poem moves beyond a realistic description of apple picking through the use of tone. There is an apparent shift in tone in the poem. In beginning portion, prior to the shift, the poem has a dreamy and peaceful tone. Frost uses metaphor to help develop this tone. “Toward heaven still,” is a metaphor for the peaceful end of the old man’s life, while “Magnified apples appear and disappear.” is a metaphor for opportunities passing him by as time goes on year after year, both of which help to create a dreamy tone in the first half of the poem, adding on to the dream-wake like atmosphere which the apple picking is set in. Diction is also used to create the tone. “Strangeness,” “heaven,” and “dreaming” are all examples of this. All three of these words contain very unreal and dreamlike connotations which play a major role in forming the poems tone. Thirdly, symbols prior to the poem’s shift also help to create a peaceful and dreamy tone as well as expose the theme. When the man states, “And there's a barrel that I didn't fill,” the author not only influences the tone but also sets up the somber shift further in. The ongoing symbolism in the poem itself of apple picking portrayed to be man’s work in his life further creates a abstract yet gentle tone. The combination of all theses elements together give us a tone which paints a peaceful picture of society going about its work into the reader’s mind. This is setup by Frost to contrast with the post-shift tone. This shift is marked by the line “For I have had too much apple picking”. This line gives us the impression that the persona is weary of life’s work and hints at a desire to enter into rest. Metaphors such as “There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch” portray a kind sadness in the many missed opportunities in the old man’s life. Robert Frost also uses diction to create a somber and tired tone. Words like “overtired” show that the man is indeed growing weary while “Cherish” evokes the feeling of holding on to all that one has left and creates a solemn feeling. The continual references of “sleep” not only do the obvious of encouraging the tired tone but also help the somber tone by alluding to a certain ‘death.’, although one may argue that this could be ambiguous and left to the reader to decide whether it refers to death or just sleep. All these items contribute to the tired and somber tone after the poem’s shift. This tone contrasts with the dreamy and peaceful tone earlier in the poem. This variance shows the man’s realization that the end is soon and the wish that he had led a more fulfilling life. From this Frost makes his theme of living life to its fullest apparent, thereby moving beyond a realistic description of apple picking to a more meditative moment.
Lastly, the poem moves beyond a realistic description of apple picking through form and rhyme and rythm. After Apple Picking" keeps resolutely returning to pentameter lines, which is an important marker of the speaker’s state of mind, as well as control and capacity for irony. The persona is this poem is drowsy, and the opening twelve-syllable line - "My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree" - is like the last murmured words before sleep. Indeed, it also represents, Frost's own precise control of tone, as he creates a speaker who is precariously "upon [his] way to sleep." This fatigued vulnerability manifests itself in an escalating slippage of control from ten-syllable lines to foreshortened lines like "For all / That struck the earth," or eleven-syllable lines like "No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble." As the speaker moves toward an increasing intuition of the symbolic underpinnings of his exhaustion, the frequency of these variations increases. The long and short lines, the irregular rhyme scheme, the recurrent participles (such as work and sleep), and the slow tempo and incantatory rhythm all suggest that repetitive labor has drained away his energy. On a deeper level, however, it presents us with an experience in which the world of normal consciousness and the world that lies beyond it meet and mingle. 'I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight', says the persona, and this strangeness, the 'essence of winter sleep', contributes to the dreamy confusion of the rhythm, the curiously 'echoing' effect of the irregular, unpredictable rhyme scheme. All these things promote a transformation of reality to that of a dream
In conclusion, Robert Frost adeptly transcends the mundane tasks of apple picking into something more by using a dreamlike quality to this poem that is achieved through the use apple picking metaphors, dreamy tones and an irregular form and rhyme scheme. All in all, in this poem Frost hovers between the daylight world of commonsense reality and the dream world of possibility.
