Blossoms are bursting out all over Melbourne, which puts me in mind of a poem my Dad introduced me to many years ago – part of a cycle of 63 poems published as ‘A Shropshire Lad’ in 1896 by A.E. Housman.
II Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
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.
Such an apparently simple poem, but it takes at least a couple of readings to pick up the subtleties of cherry trees ‘hung with snow’ at Eastertide, especially for Antipodean readers.
Then there’s the maths – never my strong point. For a long time, partly because I associated it with my father, I thought this poem was about an old man, feeling wistful that he wouldn’t see many more spring times. When I paid closer attention to the second verse, however, I realised it is about a 20-year-old man speaking – the Shropshire lad (although Housman was 37 when he wrote these lines). Once I’d worked this out, I fell in love all over again with the idea of this youth thinking that 50 years was not enough time to gaze at cherry blossom in the spring. And so, deliberately spending time just mooching around, gazing at beauty. About the woodlands I will go. Sublime.
Many years ago, when I was struggling with depression, I used to write a lot of poetry. Here is one I wrote in 1997, not a depression poem at all, but a paean, really, to the springs of both northern and southern hemispheres. It’s a bit cheeky even putting it on the same page as Housman, but hey, if I can’t do that on my own blog, what’s the point of having one?
Spring in Melbourne
Seems to come
Midwinter almost.
July, and golden wattle
Is everywhere, purple
Happy wanderer.
Not long after
Snowdrops and jonquils,
Then blossoms, pink and white,
And then
It’s on for young and old
Full blown, till springtime
Officially arrives.
Northern hemisphere
All is cold and seeming dead
For endless months
Of barren winter. Then
Suddenly it all happens:
Spring springs there,
Easter is a real
Bursting of life
From the tomb.
I’m grateful for our
Short mild winters
Laced with green and blossom but
Sometimes I yearn
For the sweetness of new life
After a long, real winter,
Like the incomparable taste
Of food after a fast.
My sweetheart and I are about to head for the northern hemisphere for a short while, and I am sad about missing the end of winter here – my favourite Melbourne season. But late summer in the UK and Europe sounds pretty good. While we’re there, we will spend plenty of time with our older lad who is only a few years older than 20, and my dad, who has, happily for all of us, well and truly exceeded his threescore years and ten and we hope will be around for a good few more yet.
To say we are looking forward to this would be an understatement. Life is full of wonder, and I don’t want to miss a single cherry blossom of it.