Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

Something a little cheerier than last week although there's still melancholy in this lovely poem about an old man looking back on his life. Another poem set to music by George Butterworth & sung here by Bryn Terfel.

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.