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. Autumn. [Jean Starr Untermeyer] (For my Mother) How memory cuts away the years, And how clean the picture comes Of autumn days, brisk and busy; Charged with keen sunshine. And you, stirred with activity; The spirit of these energetic days. There was our back-yard, So plain and stripped of green, With even the weeds carefully pulled away From the crooked, red bricks that made the walk, And the earth on either side so black. Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air; And winter comforts coming in like a pageant. I shall not forget them: Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles, Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch, Exhaling the pungent dill; And in the very center of the yard, You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down Like jolly monks in a drunken dance. And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load, Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers. Such feathery whiteness -- to come to kraut! And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust, Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire; And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance But were bitter to taste. And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces, And long string beans floating in pans of clear water Like slim, green fishes. And there was fish itself, Salted, silver herring from the city . . .