Loveliest of Trees

by A. E. Housman (1896) — a poem card from Justes Mots

A young man does the arithmetic of his life and decides, sensibly, to go and look at the cherry trees in bloom.

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,…

Themes: birthday · reflection