Poem of the Day: "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Housman

Editor's Note:  Easter is, of course, about the Resurrection, but it is also irrevocably connected with the transition from winter to spring--a resurrection of sorts.  I believe the following little ballad summarizes this feeling of renewal nicely.  Happy Easter to you and yours.
SWG

"Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Housman is the Songs of Eretz Poem of the Day for Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014.  It originally appeared in 1896 as part of Housman's first published poetry collection, A Shropshire Lad.  It is, therefore, in the public domain and legally reprinted here.

Loveliest of Trees

by A. E. Housman

Loveliests 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.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936) (pictured) was a Professor of Latin at Trinity College in Cambridge, England.  He lived a reclusive life, shunning the fame that the popularity of his poetry might have brought him.  Reference to this and additional biographical information may be found here:  http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/631.