The narrator has been picking apples for so long that he is not only tired of it, but beginning to question the system. He wonders why all apples that fall, no matter what happens to them, become worthless. This wisdom can be related to some things other than apple picking.

It's also interesting that the narrator begins to notice the flaws in the system after so much time. It seems like time should make him numb to the flaws, not the opposite.

This is a temporary shift in emotion. It's hopeful, but is preceded and followed by only negative points.

Does memory exist in body or soul?

Is this "somebody" a reference to God (or to a god)? Is this ambiguous, extemporaneous bringing of things into existence a reference to Genesis (which describes the making of order out of chaos)? The doily and the plants and the arrangement of the cans into rows are the lone ordered things in the world Bishop creates, full of extraneous, dim, oil-soaked things. All the order that exists in this world is thanks to the "somebody."

It's a strange order that the speaker uses here. Few leaves hang before none.

What is the significance of the difference in stress between "sometimes" here and in the following line?

Line nine marks a shift from analyzing the Fair youth externally to internally. The Speaker spends the first eight lines describing the Fair Youth's effect on other people (controlling, amazing). But after line nine, he shifts to describing the Fair Youth's relationships with people. He tells the Fair Youth for whom he was created, and then brings himself into the poem.

The speaker explains that the Fair Youth has a different effect on men than on women. He says that men's eyes are stolen, possibly meaning that they are made jealous by the Fair Youth's perfection. Women, however, get to have their souls amazethed. It is not a mental thought of jealousy or fascination for women, but rather an emotional amazement and wonder.

Feminine endings (unstressed final syllables) to each line emphasize the feminine qualities that the speaker is trying to portray the Fair Youth as having. This is an anomaly for Shakespearean Sonnets.

Metrical anomalies such as this have a tonal/emotional effect.

"Look in" - two consecutive stressed syllables

Metrical anomalies such as this have a tonal/emotional effect.

"Thou art" - two consecutive stressed syllables