A Shropshire Lad - II - Loveliest of

Trees
by A. E. Housman

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now, or simply, Loveliest of Trees, was published in Housman's
collection of 63 poems in A Shropshire Lad (1896). Housman self-published the book after being
turned down by several publishers. Themes tend to focus on unrequited love, pastoral beauty,
fleeting youth, grief, death, and patriotism.Loveliest of Trees is often assigned reading in high
school.

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.

Source: https://americanliterature.com/author/a-e-housman/poem/a-shropshire-lad-ii-loveliest-of-
trees