A Glance into Robert Frost's Poetry
             Upon perusal, Robert Frost's poem appears to be a simple story about an apple picker; but with a closer look one can see it is really a more complex piece which represents harvests (both literal and metaphorical), the complex nature of human experience, and the relationship between sleep and death.
             "After apple picking" has no specific rhyme scheme, although the poem seems to start a developing pattern in the beginning. The first few lines are schemed A B B A C C D and then move on to E D F G F. However, after that, the rhymes are seemingly random. There are a few rhyming couplets (BB CC QQ and RR), but there is almost a mystery surrounding the rhyming "pattern." The reader is forced to guess when rhymes will appear, which keeps the text and sounds active throughout several lines (Spark Notes NP). The poem, however, is basically iambic, drifting from short lines (one foot) to generally long lines (six feet). The poem ranges metrically from pentameter to di-, tri-, and tetrameter which adds spice to an otherwise predictable blank verse.
             The story is told in the first person-from the perspective of the apple picker himself. This, along with the meter variations, keeps the poem continually interesting. The overall tone of the piece, however, is largely subjective. It is, after all, how one chooses to interpret the tone of "After Apple Picking" which equates to how one interprets the themes of the piece: for example, the "harvest" of apples. The speaker mentions that, although one of his barrels remains unfilled, there may be only two or three apples left unpicked on the tree. One interpretation of this mentions that "[the poem] ponders a harvest which has come to perfection and then gone beyond perfection" (Squires 57). Writer Robert Penn Warren believes the harvest represents the job of writing poetr
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