Peach Tree Soft and Tender contain a use of repetition, but it also has a “melodic rhythm”, or a patterned repetition throughout the poem. This poem tells the cycle of blossom, fruits, and leaves of the peach tree while a newly wedded bride is going through a cycle of the family line.

From the first stanza, a bride is being introduced. It’s seen that the woman is “blossoming” (line 2) to become a bride. The blossom symbolizes the bride. As a newly wedded wife, it’s obviously new to her; it’s a new chapter in her life. She does not know what being a wife consists of. The bride also does not understand the requirements of a mother. All newly wedded wives can relate to that. Seen in the next two stanzas, the first line is being repeated but it is followed by a change in variation only in the second line. Each of those second line shares a new cycle for the woman.

In the second stanza, it indicates that the bride isn’t young and innocent anymore; the next step of the cycle is happening. For “plump, ripening fruit” (line 6), it tells that the bride has given birth to a child, which is the fruit. The bride now has a family which means that she is learning of the burden but also the privilege of becoming a mother. She is ripening the fruit by teaching her child her ways of life. It can be assumed that she is raising her child properly because the poem states, “she well befits this house” (line 8). The bride is beginning to fulfill her duty as not only wife, but also a mother.

Finally, for the final stanza, it shows that the wife is fulfilling her duty as a wife to take care of her family. What makes this poem amazing is that there’s a moral and that moral is a good woman’s virtue grows stronger over the years within her marital family. Another amazing thing about this poem is that it focuses on many lessons for people to use in their lives.