After Apple-Picking

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 fragrance of apple is fading now.
Next, to my ginger-bread house, with slight
Scent where smell was returning as the light.

So I’ll be warm when the night grows old;
And gather the stars through burnt gold.
Or else through canyons, so filled-seeking too,
On worn stones and walls still green where mellow
Softins’ sinks spiral of downward yellows to
Shape fruitful thoughts;
Ooo
Then here through words unfurl afresh and wide—
And as so my long two-point ladder in night!

But as I stretch above the moon shines bright;
I won’t be bored— not to tire any night!
Done now, no stars against once before,
But upon turns I’ll feel, I’ll sense more…
Chilling, warm dew craving bright minds of pale ones!
With breaking night sudden as you sleep one near
I will seek, share along and left the aim—
Forgot by forget, what you care back through. Erasing all impatience there!
So stop! here before!

• Robert Frost