My favorite CD, If There Were Dreams to Sell, contains a miniature setting of this Housman poem that I consider a half-carat masterpiece. Hint: Get the CD! Richard Hickox is the baritone, and the orchestral colors (especially oboe) complement the richness of his voice most beautifully. This poem always comes into my head at this time of year; Bryant doesn't understand why I'm compelled to stop in mid-stride (while jogging) and revel in the fragrance of apple blossoms. But, you know, apple trees only bloom once in the year! Then the blossoms are gone, not to be seen again until we're all a year older. Carpe diem!
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.
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
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.
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
2 comments:
Love this poem, and curious to see if the musical setting is the same I remember from accompanying at BJ.
My word, and you're a Housman fan as well. What a cultured person.
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