The poem I'm reading today is from A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman, 1859-1936. It is called “Cherry Blossom.”
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.
The Cherry tree that Housman wrote about is commonly known as bird cherry, with the botanical name of Prunus padus.
Our red twig dogwood, Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, also has lovely white blooms at a similar time of the year in our zone 6 and reminds us of Housman's cherry blossoms, which alas do not grow well for us.
Our white trees that are lovely substitutes, however, are the white dogwood, and both an American and a Japanese dogwood will bloom in our yards, with the American one going first and the Japanese coming later to prolong the display.
This is Moya. Andrews and today we focused on cherry blossoms.
