Loveliest Of Trees, The Cherry Now Poem by Alfred Edward Housman

Loveliest Of Trees, The Cherry Now

Rating: 3.7


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.

Friday, January 3, 2003
Topic(s) of this poem: trees
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Kathryn Heise 02 February 2007

I read this first when I was only twenty. Now at forty, I've only thirty springs left, so I recite this regularly each spring. Housman is so simple and sweet, but true.

18 11 Reply
Juhaina Tumlu 25 May 2023

Bloom all over, all predictions fails when it comes to birth and death.

0 0 Reply
Douglas Scotney 15 February 2015

If you come down here, a very long ride, you'll see it bloom at Christmastide.

6 4 Reply
Kim Barney 15 February 2015

Nobody knows how many springs they have left, except maybe the salesman at the hardware store. My father thought he would go at about age 52, because that's how old his father lived to be. However, he lived to be 86, the same as his mother was when she passed away. I like the thought in the last verse, though, to go and enjoy the blossoms at every opportunity.

7 4 Reply
Pranab K Chakraborty 15 February 2015

But what makes me astonished objects are getting somehow abstract by its shape when time by spring is being counting casually to demonstrate the passion of individual living. Even the beautiful imagery of last line becomes much useless to apply.

3 3 Reply
Sagnik Chakraborty 05 October 2014

Like most other poems of Housman, this one is characterized by its exquisite simplicity and beauty. The subtle reminder of the ephemeral nature of life introduces a note of sadness, which makes the poem all the more sweet.

6 5 Reply
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