An old community college professor of mine once read this poem aloud to our half-attentive class. I could tell that it was something special by how he gripped the page and focused on the text. Usually, his behavior betrayed him as a bit old and maybe senile, but in this moment he was fully engaged and I remember how his voice tightened as the poem's emotion intensified in the last couple stanzas. I consider this reading as the beginning of my love of poetry, and I've since told him as much. There were 3 or 4 other students (thank God) who seemed equally as pulled into the moment as myself, while the rest of the class worked at homework for other courses or whispered amongst themselves.
If you ever walk on the Robert Frost Trail in Vermont you will understand the strength of the birch trees. Thank you so much for Robert Frost and his poetry. No poet has ever written about the nature of America and what you see.
By Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost (1969)
One of my favorite poems. As a young fellow in rural Illinois, I was a swinger of birches.This poem touches me deeply. . Life lessons taught and appreciated. It has served me well in my later years. Thank you Robert Frost.
If you’re even considering going to Mars, listen to this poem first: “Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better” I downloaded this reading from Napster 20 years ago and transferred among lines of laptops and computers. It’s an old friend
@@monukeys1105 It simply means , One can just die instead of wandering to and fro memory lanes. As you may already know the swinging of birches most probably refers to author's childhood where he spent all his happy times , Care free ones. His adult life's struggles are more likely ice-storms. That swinging most probably represents the innocence of childhood. Hence , “One could do worse than be swinger of birches” can just simply mean , One can just be caught by the ice storm and pass away. This is my explanation.
For me, this poem is about life and how we experience weariness and the freedom from weariness. It’s not by accident that we experience life free of worry and anxiety at two periods in life: during childhood and late in life during our remembrance of youth.
Tranetta Elizabeth Franklin The south California public public school system, although plagued with inequality, did have a couple golden moments . As a first generation Mexican-American, some of illegal farms workers, I was left moth mr.frosts words stuck to my little head back when I first read them and still, I read them as if I’d just come across them for the first time.
Actually this poem is about freedom and creativity, how when you grow older the creativity is worn out of you. Swinging on birches is like the creative process, you leave earth for a few moments, just you and your thoughts, away from the conventional and free but you always come back to reality. Frost is expressing fear is having to leave reality for good but simultaneously he reminisces on his free, creative days where he "swung on birches".
Whenever I hear someone say - this is what this song is about, or - this is what this poem is about, the thought occurs to me that I hope I'm never so absolute that I have to tell others what they should feel from poetic writing.
It's been so long since @Nick Cage commented, so I can't directly upvote him, but I wanted to keep his comment near the top cuz I freaking appreciated reading it--"Nick Cage: Actually this poem is about freedom and creativity, how when you grow older the creativity is worn out of you. Swinging on birches is like the creative process, you leave Earth for a few moments, just you and your thoughts, away from the conventional and free but you always come back to reality. Frost is expressing fear is having to leave reality for good but silmultaneously he reminisces on his free, creative days where he "swung on birches."'
Frost was a good classicist he knew his Greek and his Iliad. Homer has "tags" that fill out the line keep the metre and describe the hero eg he las line "Such was the burial of Hektor "breaker of horses" (hippodamoio) Frost wants us to see something more than play in swinging on birches --something heroic
I just heard this for the first time rite now... when I was a kid growing up, there was a birch tree in the front yard that I used to hang and lie on. (or is it lay?) and I love frost. but just heard this for the first time
what i like to think about the first two parts of the poem is that when a person has been soo strained stressed anxious and put all of this on their self not letting themself go not letting themslf have peace not having mercy on oneself and just relax for a bit... however when they realize this and actually let themself be what they wanna be let that angry tension on oneself let go? just allow themself to be? they see their is a scar they see theya re bent and that frost they let themselves covered with is the reason of it and now they just can't straighten up they are bent in ways where the path to healing has long been cross not to be returned too... and i hope no one feel's this ever. it's just to cruel to be hard upon oneself and not just one doing it to themself no! but the other people treating another with such cruelty knowing or unkowing dosen't matter the damage has been done unable to repair.... the line i am refrering here are 00:10 to 00:50 : "But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves:"
He wishes to be younger and go back to swinging birches. This poem makes me contemplate that sooner or later we all are gonna grow old and just like him, wish that we regain our youth.
@jeffgraham91 You know, my two lines and this comment of yours make a rather tasteful poem. Which is ironic, since it's more than much of what Frost had ever written. Lulzy.
Haha I was thinking the same. I do enjoy it; I like to hear his voice, but he kind of sounds like he’s read it too many times. I came here trying to decide if I’d have him read it to my class or read it myself; I think I’ll read it myself.
'Sup Birches? (someone had to say it ;-) wordplay intended, misogyny not). Someone suggested that this might be about masturbation and I scoffed, but then read it again in that light... and thought, "woah." Could it be? That would be wild if so. Maybe it's a coincidence, but there are several parts that could fit the extended metaphor.
AFTER APPLE-PICKING ANNOTATIONS L. 7. Essence of winter sleep-the environment is full of the intoxicating scent of apples. L. 9. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight-as the apple-picker begins to drowse away, the familiar and the common begins to assume the dimensions of unfamiliarity and strangeness. He cannot rub or wipe off this film of strangeness from his eyes. L. 11. I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough--the ice which he had collected in the morning from the surface of drinking water in a trough, which is a long narrow vessel for watering animals. L. 12. Hoary grass-grass covered with frost or snow. In his drowsy haze, things appear new, strange and unfamiliar as they had appeared to him when he looked at them through the ice he had collected that morning. L. 20. Fleck of russet- every bit or spot of reddish brown colour on the apples. L. 21. Instep arch-the prominent upper part of the human foot near its junction with the leg. L. 34. Spiked with stubble--pierced or bruised with some stubble, still standing in the field. L. 38. Whatever sleep it is-a touch of mystery is imparted to the entire aura. The apple-picker is not sure whether his sleep is the ordinary sleep of human beings, or the long winter hibernation of creatures of nature like the woodchuck. (B) EXPLANATIONS WITH CRITICAL COMMENTS L1. 1-5 My long....some bough-The dramatic setting and initial commitment in tone is remarkable. “Pre-sleep and sleepy reminiscence of the day, condition all that is said and the speaker's first words show what form his dreamy talk will take.". L. 6. But I am....apple-picking now-The apple-picker is thoroughly tired and bored with apple picking. Fatigue and boredom gas he decides that he will have nothing to do with apple-picking. L. 7. Essence of winter sleep-The entire atmosphere is laden with sleepiness. L. 18. Magnified apples-Though the apple-picker is seeing the apples against the sky with daylight accuracy and clarity, they appear to be magnified and enlarged. For him, they stand out as symbols for great dream like spheres. L. 19. Stem end and blossom end-This repetitious way of describing the apples over and over again helps in blurring the precise details and giving the whole set up a metaphoric dimension. L. 30. There were....to touch- This line instantly brings to mind the line in The Daffodils- 'Ten thousand saw I at a glance.' L. 40-41. The wood chuck......long sleep-This is the closing metaphor of the poem, and as such, it adds to the strangeness of 'winter sleep' by bringing in the non-human death-like sleep of hibernation. L. 42. Or just some human sleep-“The poem is absorbed with states between not only of winter sleep, but of all similar areas where real and unreal appear and disappear. After Apple-Picking illustrates exactly Santayana's remark, that the artist is a person consenting to dream of reality. The consent in this instance is implied in the perfection of the form." EXPLANATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO CONTEXT L. 7-12. Essence of winter....hoary grass-- In these lines there is a very fine and vivid description of the atmosphere in the orchard. This description by the apple-picker gives us the very touch, the very feel of the atmosphere in the orchard. This description is sensuous and becomes alive because the words he chooses are just apt for the description and create an impression of drowsiness. Untermeyer rightly comments that it is a vivid memory of experience that the reader absorbs it physically. I feel it is not a memory of an experience it is much more-in this description the apple-picker is reliving the experience. The smell of the apples is too overpowering for him. He also senses the quaintness of the world as it appears to the exhausted worker. The scent of apples in this poem reminds us of a similar expression "drowsed with the fume of poppies" in Keats's Ode to Autumn. The apple-picker feels himself pervaded with an oppressive feeling of drowsiness. Here again we can trace a similarity between this drowsy sleepiness and the drowsy numbness of Keats' Ode to Autumn. The entire landscape and the atmosphere around him assumes a mysterious halo and is misted by over with a rare quality of strangeness. These qualities transform the scene completely and the apple-picker can neither get rid of quality nor can he comprehend the transformed world. As he unknowingly steps into the realms of this world of sleepiness the narrative of the about the ice skimmed from the trough mingles gradually with the dream the time references of the tenses become fused and confused. Brown comments on the rhythm and images of the poem. "The meaning implied by the self-hypnosis and dreamy confusion on rhythm is finely suggested in the image of the world of 'hoary grass' the morning that anticipates the night vision. This blurring of experience focuses in the central metaphor of the poem, essence of winter sleep. Essence is both the abstract ultimate nature of sleep and the physical smell, the scent of apples a metaphysical image in T.S. Eliot's sense of the term. Fragrance and sleep blend, and sight and touch merge in. “I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight." L1. 37-38. One can....sleep it is--"In these lines tone and rhythm work together beautifully, implying a great deal in relation to Frost's metaphor. The slight elevation of "One can see" recalls the more mysterious seeing of the morning just as the almost banal lyricism of "This sleep of mine" sustains the rhythm of dream-confusion. The rest of second line barely iambic, barely rhyming, casual and rough, assures us that the speaker has at least one toe in reality"
An old community college professor of mine once read this poem aloud to our half-attentive class. I could tell that it was something special by how he gripped the page and focused on the text. Usually, his behavior betrayed him as a bit old and maybe senile, but in this moment he was fully engaged and I remember how his voice tightened as the poem's emotion intensified in the last couple stanzas. I consider this reading as the beginning of my love of poetry, and I've since told him as much. There were 3 or 4 other students (thank God) who seemed equally as pulled into the moment as myself, while the rest of the class worked at homework for other courses or whispered amongst themselves.
I love the way you described this moment. I felt like I shared it with you. ❤️
Inspiring!
@@notjohnkeats2787I completely agree with this, it was truly an inspiration 🙏🏻
Thank you so much for putting this on UA-cam. What an honor and a joy and a blessing to be able to hear Robert frosts voice reading his own work
this poem is so tenderhearted and perfect. Thank you for letting us hear Mr. Frost read it.
I never get tired of listening to Frost. I visited his farm in New England a month ago, saw the place that inspired him to write for 11 years.
What a wonderful trip to make!
If you ever walk on the Robert Frost Trail in Vermont you will understand the strength of the birch trees. Thank you so much for Robert Frost and his poetry. No poet has ever written about the nature of America and what you see.
By Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows-
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost (1969)
david johnson thank you for this!
thnx
One of my favorite poems. As a young fellow in rural Illinois, I was a swinger of birches.This poem touches me deeply. . Life lessons taught and appreciated. It has served me well in my later years. Thank you Robert Frost.
How are you now ? After a decade !!
Robert Frost...Quintessential New England, yet accessible to the whole world... Unspeakable perfection ....
If you’re even considering going to Mars, listen to this poem first: “Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better” I downloaded this reading from Napster 20 years ago and transferred among lines of laptops and computers. It’s an old friend
"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."
Shivers, I got pure shivers as he said that.
Hey I really didn't understand this sentence. Can you explain ? I searched for it everywhere but didn't get it
@@monukeys1105 umm , It can have plenty of explanation, u still up for one?
@@luna07430 i still dont understand this sentence xD
@@monukeys1105 It simply means , One can just die instead of wandering to and fro memory lanes. As you may already know the swinging of birches most probably refers to author's childhood where he spent all his happy times , Care free ones. His adult life's struggles are more likely ice-storms. That swinging most probably represents the innocence of childhood. Hence , “One could do worse than be swinger of birches” can just simply mean , One can just be caught by the ice storm and pass away. This is my explanation.
@@luna07430 oh i now understand it . Thankyou so much for taking time to explain ❤️😁
For me, this poem is about life and how we experience weariness and the freedom from weariness. It’s not by accident that we experience life free of worry and anxiety at two periods in life: during childhood and late in life during our remembrance of youth.
Still enough to make cry.
Yep....touched me this time...and probably will again when I reread it...as I am likely to do...one could do worse than be a reader of "Birches"
Tranetta Elizabeth Franklin
The south California public public school system, although plagued with inequality, did have a couple golden moments . As a first generation Mexican-American, some of illegal farms workers, I was left moth mr.frosts words stuck to my little head back when I first read them and still, I read them as if I’d just come across them for the first time.
Yes
I quoted this poem for my senior year book quote. "One could do worse than be a swinger of Birches."
It has a completely different ring to the poem when read by the poet himself. Thank you, Robert Frost, for this beautiful masterpiece.
I love Frost's voice!!!!!
Actually this poem is about freedom and creativity, how when you grow older the creativity is worn out of you. Swinging on birches is like the creative process, you leave earth for a few moments, just you and your thoughts, away from the conventional and free but you always come back to reality. Frost is expressing fear is having to leave reality for good but simultaneously he reminisces on his free, creative days where he "swung on birches".
Did he tell you that?
is it though
All subjective my friend
Whenever I hear someone say - this is what this song is about, or - this is what this poem is about, the thought occurs to me that I hope I'm never so absolute that I have to tell others what they should feel from poetic writing.
“One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” Priceless. True.
Damn, this is is an amazing Poem.
Ryan Ortega one of my favorites..❤️🌷
One of my favorites from him, and even better with him reciting it.
Thank you 😊❤️☀️A most brilliant poet
Wow. I haven't the adequate words, in my opinion, to describe how beautifully this man wrote. I nearly cried by the end of this.
Thank you for this 👏 👏 poem and reading
Love Robert Frost poems
.They give my heart ❤ great comfort.
my friend said he doesn't "get " poetry. I said, " just check out anything by Robert Frost"
One of my all time favourite poems, love his seemingly simple style, expressing such tender thoughts
What a wonderful poem, one of Frost's best I think.
My mantra... through hard times.
Love his poetry and voice...
Just Beautiful. I lived in Haverhill, Ma years ago and can still smell the woods.
still remember the English course book of 9th standard of Kerala syllabus during 2005-06 ... beautiful poem ..
"I'd like to get away from Earth a while..." omg yes please.
This is a masterpiece! Thank you Mr Frost! ❤❤
This is beautiful ❤️
It's been so long since @Nick Cage commented, so I can't directly upvote him, but I wanted to keep his comment near the top cuz I freaking appreciated reading it--"Nick Cage: Actually this poem is about freedom and creativity, how when you grow older the creativity is worn out of you. Swinging on birches is like the creative process, you leave Earth for a few moments, just you and your thoughts, away from the conventional and free but you always come back to reality. Frost is expressing fear is having to leave reality for good but silmultaneously he reminisces on his free, creative days where he "swung on birches."'
@@Dasein2005 no one asked for your opinion either but here you are! Their response was beautiful 😀
Wonderful thinking and a beautiful voice!
New favorite poem.
what could '"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches" mean ? such a beautiful poem !
Frost was a good classicist he knew his Greek and his Iliad. Homer has "tags" that fill out the line keep the metre and describe the hero eg he las line "Such was the burial of Hektor "breaker of horses" (hippodamoio) Frost wants us to see something more than play in swinging on birches --something heroic
I just heard this for the first time rite now... when I was a kid growing up, there was a birch tree in the front yard that I used to hang and lie on. (or is it lay?)
and I love frost. but just heard this for the first time
"I was once a swinger..." - You tell it how it was Robert! 😊 Only joking - magnificent poetry.
what i like to think about the first two parts of the poem is that when a person has been soo strained stressed anxious and put all of this on their self not letting themself go not letting themslf have peace not having mercy on oneself and just relax for a bit... however when they realize this and actually let themself be what they wanna be let that angry tension on oneself let go? just allow themself to be? they see their is a scar they see theya re bent and that frost they let themselves covered with is the reason of it and now they just can't straighten up they are bent in ways where the path to healing has long been cross not to be returned too... and i hope no one feel's this ever. it's just to cruel to be hard upon oneself and not just one doing it to themself no! but the other people treating another with such cruelty knowing or unkowing dosen't matter the damage has been done unable to repair.... the line i am refrering here are 00:10 to 00:50 :
"But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:"
Favorite poem, "Prufrock" comes close.
Bryant Poss 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,' by T.S Eliot. Agreed! One of my favorites too...☺️
Great channel. Thanks.
I EMPHASIZE ON THE WORD ICE.Thats an understatement the words ice storm good god good jesus help us all thats good
He wishes to be younger and go back to swinging birches. This poem makes me contemplate that sooner or later we all are gonna grow old and just like him, wish that we regain our youth.
0:00
0:28
Camilly
0:28
1:01
Evillyn
1:01
1:22
Ana Clara Rodrigues
1:22
1:52
yoná
1:52
2:27
Ana Clara Sousa.
W O N D E R F U L .
J U S T W O ND E R F U L.
❤️❤️❤️
America's greatest poet.
my favorite poem.
He sounds like he is trying to get it over with as fast as possible
this is family incarnate
One could do worse than be a swinger of Truffula trees.
Thank you.Loved it.🇷🇺
That just went south real quick.
Luv this man!
We have known the days.. .
I love frost
This isn't poetry.
This is prose.
@YawnGod You try writing in Blank Verse and see how it goes.
Take the poetry walk at the Frost Place in Franconia, NH! Pause the video to read each poem along the way. ua-cam.com/video/1SBjJZ0UDh4/v-deo.html
it actually is
@brandonjrowe If you read Robert Frost for masterbatory images I'd hate to hear what you think about when you read Dr. Seuss.
At was pretty good.
@jeffgraham91 You know, my two lines and this comment of yours make a rather tasteful poem. Which is ironic, since it's more than much of what Frost had ever written.
Lulzy.
by there I meant new england
where is its analysis by the speaker himself?
@MrJay50jay The decimal system is pretty overrated, don't you think?
No birches?
wow
Nicole
Love the poem, but I don't particularly like Frost's reading of it. Haha, am I allowed to do that? It's his poem after all..
Hm...
Haha I was thinking the same. I do enjoy it; I like to hear his voice, but he kind of sounds like he’s read it too many times. I came here trying to decide if I’d have him read it to my class or read it myself; I think I’ll read it myself.
stephanralph, you definitely need to get out more often....
ayup
'Sup Birches? (someone had to say it ;-) wordplay intended, misogyny not). Someone suggested that this might be about masturbation and I scoffed, but then read it again in that light... and thought, "woah." Could it be? That would be wild if so. Maybe it's a coincidence, but there are several parts that could fit the extended metaphor.
@YawnGod 1/10 because you got me to respond.
who had to do this for school 🤢🤢🤢🤢
AFTER APPLE-PICKING
ANNOTATIONS
L. 7. Essence of winter sleep-the environment is full of the intoxicating scent of apples. L. 9. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight-as the apple-picker begins to drowse away, the familiar and the common begins to assume the dimensions of unfamiliarity and strangeness. He cannot rub or wipe off this film of strangeness from his eyes. L. 11. I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough--the ice which he had collected in the morning from the surface of drinking water in a trough, which is a long narrow vessel for watering animals. L. 12. Hoary grass-grass covered with frost or snow. In his drowsy haze, things appear new, strange and unfamiliar as they had appeared to him when he looked at them through the ice he had collected that morning. L. 20. Fleck of russet- every bit or spot of reddish brown colour on the apples. L. 21. Instep arch-the prominent upper part of the human foot near its junction with the leg. L. 34. Spiked with stubble--pierced or bruised with some stubble, still standing in the field. L. 38. Whatever sleep it is-a touch of mystery is imparted to the entire aura. The apple-picker is not sure whether his sleep is the ordinary sleep of human beings, or the long winter hibernation of creatures of nature like the woodchuck.
(B) EXPLANATIONS WITH CRITICAL COMMENTS
L1. 1-5 My long....some bough-The dramatic setting and initial commitment in tone is remarkable. “Pre-sleep and sleepy reminiscence of the day, condition all that is said and the speaker's first words show what form his dreamy talk will take.".
L. 6. But I am....apple-picking now-The apple-picker is thoroughly tired and bored with apple picking. Fatigue and boredom gas he decides that he will have nothing to do with apple-picking.
L. 7. Essence of winter sleep-The entire atmosphere is laden with sleepiness.
L. 18. Magnified apples-Though the apple-picker is seeing the apples against the sky with daylight accuracy and clarity, they appear to be magnified and enlarged. For him, they stand out as symbols for great dream like spheres.
L. 19. Stem end and blossom end-This repetitious way of describing the apples over and over again helps in blurring the precise details and giving the whole set up a metaphoric dimension.
L. 30. There were....to touch- This line instantly brings to mind the line in The Daffodils- 'Ten thousand saw I at a glance.'
L. 40-41. The wood chuck......long sleep-This is the closing metaphor of the poem, and as such, it adds to the strangeness of 'winter sleep' by bringing in the non-human death-like sleep of hibernation.
L. 42. Or just some human sleep-“The poem is absorbed with states between not only of winter sleep, but of all similar areas where real and unreal appear and disappear. After Apple-Picking illustrates exactly Santayana's remark, that the artist is a person consenting to dream of reality. The consent in this instance is implied in the perfection of the form."
EXPLANATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO CONTEXT
L. 7-12. Essence of winter....hoary grass-- In these lines there is a very fine and vivid description of the atmosphere in the orchard. This description by the apple-picker gives us the very touch, the very feel of the atmosphere in the orchard. This description is sensuous and becomes alive because the words he chooses are just apt for the description and create an impression of drowsiness. Untermeyer rightly comments that it is a vivid memory of experience that the reader absorbs it physically. I feel it is not a memory of an experience it is much more-in this description the apple-picker is reliving the experience. The smell of the apples is too overpowering for him. He also senses the quaintness of the world as it appears to the exhausted worker. The scent of apples in this poem reminds us of a similar expression "drowsed with the fume of poppies" in Keats's Ode to Autumn. The apple-picker feels himself pervaded with an oppressive feeling of drowsiness. Here again we can trace a similarity between this drowsy sleepiness and the drowsy numbness of Keats' Ode to Autumn. The entire landscape and the atmosphere around him assumes a mysterious halo and is misted by over with a rare quality of strangeness. These qualities transform the scene completely and the apple-picker can neither get rid of quality nor can he comprehend the transformed world. As he unknowingly steps into the realms of this world of sleepiness the narrative of the about the ice skimmed from the trough mingles gradually with the dream the time references of the tenses become fused and confused. Brown comments on the rhythm and images of the poem.
"The meaning implied by the self-hypnosis and dreamy confusion on rhythm is finely suggested in the image of the world of 'hoary grass' the morning that anticipates the night vision. This blurring of experience focuses in the central metaphor of the poem, essence of winter sleep. Essence is both the abstract ultimate nature of sleep and the physical smell, the scent of apples a metaphysical image in T.S. Eliot's sense of the term. Fragrance and sleep blend, and sight and touch merge in. “I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight."
L1. 37-38. One can....sleep it is--"In these lines tone and rhythm work together beautifully, implying a great deal in relation to Frost's metaphor. The slight elevation of "One can see" recalls the more mysterious seeing of the morning just as the almost banal lyricism of "This sleep of mine" sustains the rhythm of dream-confusion. The rest of second line barely iambic, barely rhyming, casual and rough, assures us that the speaker has at least one toe in reality"
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