Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
—A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
Possibly his most cheerful, despite the Death reference. endings like
I shall die tomorrow/ but you shall die today; or
Today the Roman and his trouble/ are ashes under Uricon
show more Dismalness. And yet I love him!
He was forever the realist, even here, wasn’t he? Thanks for stopping by to comment!