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My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
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1
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| Toward heaven still, |
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| And there's a barrel that I didn't fill |
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| Beside it, and there may be two or three |
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| Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. |
5
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| But I am done with apple-picking now. |
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| Essence of winter sleep is on the night, |
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| The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. |
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| I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight |
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| I got from looking through a pane of glass |
10
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| I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough |
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| And held against the world of hoary grass. |
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| It melted, and I let it fall and break. |
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| But I was well |
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| Upon my way to sleep before it fell, |
15
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| And I could tell |
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| What form my dreaming was about to take. |
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| Magnified apples appear and disappear, |
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| Stem end and blossom end, |
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| And every fleck of russet showing dear. |
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| My instep arch not only keeps the ache, |
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| It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. |
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| I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. |
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| And I keep hearing from the cellar bin |
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| The rumbling sound |
25
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| Of load on load of apples coming in. |
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| For I have had too much |
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| Of apple-picking: I am overtired |
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| Of the great harvest I myself desired. |
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| There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, |
30
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| Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. |
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| For all |
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| That struck the earth, |
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| No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, |
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| Went surely to the cider-apple heap |
35
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| As of no worth. |
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| One can see what will trouble |
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| This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. |
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| Were he not gone, |
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| The woodchuck could say whether it's like his |
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| Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, |
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| Or just some human sleep. |
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