Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride, Waving in the wind’s light tide;

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.

• AE Housman