After Apple Picking
On "After Apple-Picking"
Reuben A. Brower
There is no question here of tones playing against a traditional form; rather, an original rhythmic form grows out of the dramatic setting and the initial commitment in tone. 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. His 'ladder's sticking through a tree'—which is accurate and earthy—but 'through a tree / Toward heaven.' As the apple-picker drowses off, narrative of fact about the ice skimmed from the trough gets mixed with dream, and the time references of the tenses become a bit confused:
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
'Could tell' and 'was about to take' seem to refer both to the morning and to the present state of 'drowsing off.'
Everything said throughout the poem comes to the reader through sentences filled with incantatory repetitions and, rhymes and in waves of sound linked by likeness of pattern. From the opening lines, apparently matter-of-fact talk falls into curious chain-like sentences, rich in end-rhymes and, echoes of many sorts. But although the voice seems to be lapsing into the rhyming fits of insomnia, the fits shape themselves into distinct and subtly varied patterns. Each phase of reminiscence or reflection forms a unit of syntax, all except two without a final stop within the unit; and each unit becomes in effect a stanza marked off by one or two rhyming 'seals.' The last word either introduces a new rhyme that will be picked up in the next stanza:
. . . off. 2
. . . break. 3
. . . it is. 9 or else it completes a rhyme used earlier and with one exception not used again:
. . . now. 1
. . . take. 4
. . . clear. 5
. . . in. 6
. . . desired. 7
. . . worth. 8
. . . sleep. 10
The
Reuben A. Brower
There is no question here of tones playing against a traditional form; rather, an original rhythmic form grows out of the dramatic setting and the initial commitment in tone. 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. His 'ladder's sticking through a tree'—which is accurate and earthy—but 'through a tree / Toward heaven.' As the apple-picker drowses off, narrative of fact about the ice skimmed from the trough gets mixed with dream, and the time references of the tenses become a bit confused:
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
'Could tell' and 'was about to take' seem to refer both to the morning and to the present state of 'drowsing off.'
Everything said throughout the poem comes to the reader through sentences filled with incantatory repetitions and, rhymes and in waves of sound linked by likeness of pattern. From the opening lines, apparently matter-of-fact talk falls into curious chain-like sentences, rich in end-rhymes and, echoes of many sorts. But although the voice seems to be lapsing into the rhyming fits of insomnia, the fits shape themselves into distinct and subtly varied patterns. Each phase of reminiscence or reflection forms a unit of syntax, all except two without a final stop within the unit; and each unit becomes in effect a stanza marked off by one or two rhyming 'seals.' The last word either introduces a new rhyme that will be picked up in the next stanza:
. . . off. 2
. . . break. 3
. . . it is. 9 or else it completes a rhyme used earlier and with one exception not used again:
. . . now. 1
. . . take. 4
. . . clear. 5
. . . in. 6
. . . desired. 7
. . . worth. 8
. . . sleep. 10
The