Summary

The poem begins with the speaker and his companion buying peaches from a roadside stall at a “bend in the road” (4). Already, at the outset, the speaker is led to think of the “blossoms” (1) that the peaches come from.

In the second stanza, the speaker expands on his imagination of the blossoms. He thinks about the trees filled with peaches – the “laden boughs” (6). He describes the “hands” (6), presumably involved in picking the peaches from the trees. In the present moment, the speaker also thinks about the act of selecting peaches together with his friend, the “sweet fellowship in the bins” (7) that occurs before they all “devour” (9) the peaches whole, “dusty skin and all” (9).

Coming after the concrete experience of eating the peach, the third stanza moves into reflective, metaphysical ground. The speaker compares the act of eating the peaches to “[taking] what we love...