"After Apple-Picking"

oh, Robert Frost, you and your allegories.

I find this poem to be full of regret. I mean, the speaker's "ladder" is still pointed toward heaven, but he's got a whole basket of "apples" still to fill. to me, this screams "I'm going to die eventually and I haven't done anything productive with my life yet". the speaker tells how he's left some apples up in the tree. these are missed opportunities that he either passed up or didn't have the initiative to go after. However, he also says "For I have had too much of apple-picking: I am overtired" which suggests that he's been doing a lot or did a lot at one point and just got burnt out. right now he doesn't have the time or effort to continue to pick apples, take risks, discover new opportunities.

I haven't determined for certain if death is imminent or not, but for whatever reason the speaker doesn't feel like there's any more he can do. something tells me from the attitude of it though that no matter how much he may regret not doing more, he isn't going to try to fix that now. he does say that eventually he'll be sleeping, but he clarifies and says that it might just be "human sleep" and he's not sure either. regardless, the speaker is overwhelmed and has begun to overthink past mistakes or shortcomings, but isn't really going to try to fix them.