The poem
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree And wore them all that evening in my hair: Then in due season when I went to see I found no apples there. With dangling basket all along the grass As I had come I went the selfsame track: My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass So empty-handed back.
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by, Their heaped-up basket teazed me like a jeer; Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky, Their mother's home was near.
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full, A stronger hand than hers helped it along; A voice talked with her thro' the shadows cool More sweet to me than song.
Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth Than apples with their green leaves piled above? I counted rosiest apples on the earth Of far less worth than love.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk Laughing and listening in this very lane: To think that by this way we used to walk We shall not walk again!
I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos And groups; the latest said the night grew chill, And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews Fell fast I loitered still.
The poem "An Apple-Gathering" by Christina Rossetti because is powerful and moving. This poem is about the narrator, who, after plucking blossoms from the apple tree, is surprised to find no apples there. The first quartet shows the narrator, probably because they looked pretty, "plucked pink blossoms from my apple and wore them all evening in my hair." She appeared disappointed and perplexed that there were "no…
Read the whole commentThe poem "An Apple-Gathering" by Christina Rossetti because is powerful and moving. This poem is about the narrator, who, after plucking blossoms from the apple tree, is surprised to find no apples there.
The first quartet shows the narrator, probably because they looked pretty, "plucked pink blossoms from my apple and wore them all evening in my hair." She appeared disappointed and perplexed that there were "no apples there" in the "due season."
Like many of Rossetti's poems, a theme of betrayed love or unfulfilment of love is seen in this poem. She watches all her female friends walk by with full baskets, with neighbours "mocking her" because of her empty basket. The full baskets are teasing her "like a jeer." This is an example of pathetic fallacy. However, other friends are helped by "a stronger hand than hers", like Gertrude. The narrator believes that the love of a man is more important to her than just about anything, including song and the rosiest apples. The lines "A voice talked with her thro' the shadows cool, more sweet to me than song" and "I counted rosiest apples on the earth more sweet to me than song" demonstrate these ideas. At the poem's conclusion, she loitered, and, symbolising her tears, "the dews fell". Her tears fell, as the "latest" person said when they passed her, "the night grew chill" and she was alone.
This poem has an ABAB rhyming scheme, with a pattern of 10-10-10-6 syllables.
Alliteration is also used in several lines of the poem. In "plucked pink blossoms from my apple tree," the short and sharp 'p' sound gives the impression of actually plucking the blossom from the tree. "Sweet voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky" is an example of sibilance. The soft 's' showing a soft, happy line - also, the people in that line (Lilian and Lilias) are together, which is the narrator's view of happiness.
Overall, "An Apple-Gathering" by Christina Rossetti is a poem dealing with a young woman's past rejection in love - at the beginning of the poem, she picks the apple blossoms instead of leaving them on the tree to bloom. Therefore, instead of leaving them to become apples and for her former lover Willie to help her carry them, she is left to walk home empty-handed and embarrassed.