After Apple-Picking

"After Apple-Picking" is a poem by American poet Robert Frost. It was published in North of Boston, Frost's second poetry collection. The poem does not conform strictly to a particular form, though it's loosely iambic pentameter.^[1]

The poem describes a pastoral scene of New England life in autumn, characteristic of Frost's early work.^[2] The narrator is recalling his day spent picking apples on a ladder as he falls asleep. Scholarly interpretation of the poem often focuses on themes of sleep, dreaming, and the somber conclusion to the piece, in which the narrator wonders if his oncoming sleep is a normal slumber, or a "long sleep."^[3]

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