My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now.
Frost uses the natural image of the ladder “sticking through a tree” and reaching “toward heaven” to suggest a spiritual or emotional search, which reflects Romantic ideas about finding meaning through nature. The unfinished apples and the barrel he “didn’t fill” symbolize human imperfection and the limits of personal ambition, an inner reflection that Romantic writers valued. His choice to stop apple-picking shows a moment of emotional awareness and self-understanding shaped by his experience in the natural world.