It is, as its title implies about work, time and change: about an earthly harvest and what follows. It explores

the frustrations and rewards of labor, touching upon biblical texts. Its references to heaven and earth and its play on things fallen, lost and saved are anything but casual.

There is an essay in the Robert Frost Review '96:

"Looking through the Glass; Frost's AAP and Pauls 1 Corinthians". by David A

Sanders of St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.

Fisher talks about two allusions there:

Lewis Carroll "Through the Looking Glass" and 1 Corinthians 13, in which

Paul contrasts our occluded earthly vision with that in the kingdom of God:

"For now we see throught a glass, darkly: but then face to face". For

Frost, the problems of mortal knowledge are those of mortality itself - the

limitations from the loss of Eden. (After Apple-Picking in the Garden of

Eden by the children of Adam and Eve - we are made to labor - just as

described here, loss of grace, suffering and death). Also note the irony

that we keep picking and harvesting the apples analogous to the labor we

are made to do by the loss of the Garden of Eden, th

3. a universal level - everyone feels this way

Eden - apple tree. Great lore /inspiration. Frost loved pruning apple

always had apple trees nearby. Frost was very aware of Genesis - Garden of

Its about labor, harvesting, desiring - what ? :apples, could be anything

with its drowsy longing for escape from the temporal world through art. "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk" ...I cannot see what flowers are at my feet"

Some common words found in the essay are:
Reuben Brower, Masque Mercy, Garden Eden, Ode Nightingale, Apple-Picking Note, Reginald Cook, Looking Glass, Hamlet Sleep, Adam Eve, Robert Frost, garden eden, robert frost, ode nightingale, frost loved, looking glass, apple tree, apple trees, 1 corinthians,
Approximate Word count = 870
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)