Contemplation for a Spring afternoon (something from the public domain ;) )
"Loveliest of Trees", a poem by A.E. Housman, from his collection entitled A Shropshire Lad, 1896. Thoughts on the beauty of nature, the short scope of life, and the awareness of mortality. This critical essay on the poem provides a little more food for thought.
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.
I'm going for a walk. The songbirds are back.
Cheers--
Mary Anne