{"id":1626,"date":"2013-04-18T14:08:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T14:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2013-04-18T14:08:46","modified_gmt":"2013-04-18T14:08:46","slug":"loveliest-of-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=1626","title":{"rendered":"Loveliest of trees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In &#8216;A Shropshire Lad&#8217; published in 1896, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/bio\/a-e-housman\">A. E. Housman<\/a> (1859\u20131936) wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Loveliest of trees, the cherry now<br \/>\nIs hung with bloom along the bough,<br \/>\nAnd stands about the woodland ride<br \/>\nWearing white for Eastertide.<\/p>\n<p>Now, of my threescore years and ten,<br \/>\nTwenty will not come again,<br \/>\nAnd take from seventy springs a score,<br \/>\nIt only leaves me fifty more.<\/p>\n<p>And since to look at things in bloom<br \/>\nFifty springs are little room,<br \/>\nAbout the woodlands I will go<br \/>\nTo see the cherry hung with snow.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s a poem that has stayed with me throughout life since I first heard it and memorised it at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketdrayton-jun.shropshire.sch.uk\/index.asp\">Market Drayton Junior School in Shropshire<\/a> some five decades ago: and I must agree with dear old A.E.; the cherry is a lovely tree. The Japanese even have a <a href=\"http:\/\/gojapan.about.com\/cs\/cherryblossoms\/a\/sakurafestival.htm\">cherry blossom festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Eastertide was early this year in March and was unusually cold, so the cherry trees still had bare boughs then.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve only just started blooming properly in Bristol now.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1627\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1627\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2013\/04\/cherry.jpg\" alt=\"Cherry trees in Castle Park, Bristol\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1627\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2013\/04\/cherry.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2013\/04\/cherry-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1627\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cherry trees in Castle Park, Bristol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Shropshire Lad is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/5720\">available free from Project Gutenberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In &#8216;A Shropshire Lad&#8217; published in 1896, A. E. Housman (1859\u20131936) wrote: 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[40,16,22],"class_list":["post-1626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","tag-bristol","tag-english-usage","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1626"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1631,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions\/1631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}