FREE ESSAY ON AFTER APPLE PICKING

AFTER APPLE PICKING

The speaker uses the word "sleep" six times in the poem. This repetition, along with
additional words that connote sleeping or resting, comes to suggest the presence of
death. The speaker has endured a long hard life, and his routine activity, no matter how
fulfilling it must have been at first and throughout, has agonized him and brought
exhaustion to his soul. Even the "rumbling of the loads and unloads of apples" disturbs
his senses. The poem implies that rest, sleep, or death is necessary for all things. Even
the glorious life, monotonously thriving the soul on that one joyous habitual, fatigues a
person when faced day to day. The speaker asserts this: "I am overtired of the great
harvest I myself desired." He knows he will sleep that "human sleep" of restoration once
the sun comes down. But his tone reveals despise to "just human sleep." He would much
rather endure that "long sleep" of everlasting tranquility and dreams beyond imaginable
capabilities. The speaker does not wish to inflict his own death, however, he does long
for it, and waits for it as his vent for serenity. He waits the "ladder" that will take
him "toward heaven."