Poem

Explanation

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

This one hits the heart of any parent who works hard and sacrifices to make life more comfortable for the family.

The father, who works hard all week, gets up on his one day to rest and lights the fire to warm the house before waking the family.

The speaker indicated that the father is a hard or demanding man to live with (“chronic angers of that house”). It seems there is no warmth in the house other than that provided by the fire. The speaker never thanks the father, in fact, never even thinks about the discomfort his father experiences getting up to a cold house so that the family can get up in a warm one.

The poem implies that the speaker now, as an adult looking back, realizes the sacrifice made by the father—perhaps the speaker is now a father too. Now the speaker realized that there actually was warmth in the house other than the fire—it was spoken by deeds and not by words.

Poem

Explanation

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
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.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

This poem is more difficult than the previous two. There is a lot of imagery and symbolism, but first, let’s start with the surface/literal meaning.

The speaker is someone who grows apples for a living. He/She is tired of it. Maybe tired from that day’s work, tired from that season’s harvest, or tired of this vocation—we don’t really know for sure.

It seems that even picking apples invades the speaker’s sleep, causing him to dream about it—even smell the scent of apples and the sound of loading the apples in a bin invade his sleep.

There are other details of farm life—picking up the thin layer of ice frozen on the top of the drinking trough (“pane of glass).

However, even though the speaker is weary of apple picking, he/she does enjoy the profits of his/her labors and is therefore careful not to let even one fruit drop to the ground to become bruised and devalued at market.

The coming of winter is also evident in the poem—shorter days, temperatures low enough to make water freeze. For many animals winter is a time for hibernation (the woodchuck’s “long sleep”) and perhaps the speaker is just ready to settle down for a pace less hectic than the harvest season.

As far as symbolism goes, there is a degree of symbolism in the coming of the winter—if you think about the progression of ones life as the passing of the seasons. Winter is a time for dying. Maybe the speaker is ready for his final years and death. This can be supported by the language in the beginning of the poem referring to the ladder still pointed towards heaven.

Also, in the first few lines, the speaker points out a barrel not filled with apples and a few apples left on the branches of the trees. These may represent unfulfilled goals, or things left undone in life and the speaker feels it is too late, or he/she is too tired to go back and do them now.

Then again, is the traditional symbolism of the apple and the Garden of Eden bringing about the fall of mankind from grace. I personally don’t think there is much to that aspect of the poem, but some scholars will argue that it is important.