Unharvested
Unharvested - context Summary
Published in 1936
Published in Robert Frost’s 1936 collection A Further Range, "Unharvested" is a brief late-career meditation on restraint and unexpected abundance. Frost describes discovering an apple tree that has shed its fruit, leaving the ground carpeted with red, and uses that image to wish that some things remain "unharvested." The poem gently proposes that leaving pleasures or possibilities untouched preserves their sweetness and spares them from being reduced to utility. As part of a 1936 volume, it reflects Frost’s mature voice—compact, reflective, and quietly philosophical.
Read Complete AnalysesA scent of ripeness from over a wall. And come to leave the routine road And look for what had made me stall, There sure enough was an apple tree That had eased itself of its summer load, And of all but its trivial foliage free, Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan. For there had been an apple fall As complete as the apple had given man. The ground was one circle of solid red. May something go always unharvested! May much stay out of our stated plan, Apples or something forgotten and left, So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.
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