Like the sweet apple reddening on the topmost branch,
the topmost apple on the tip of the branch,
and the pickers forgot it,
well, no, they didn't forget, they just couldn't reach it.

Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough, A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,— Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now. | (tr. D. G. Rossetti, 1870) | Like the pippin blushing high On the tree-top beneath the sky, Where the pickers forgot it—nay, Could not reach it so far away. | (tr. J. M. Edmonds, 1922)