"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now" is a lyric poem by the English Latin scholar and poet

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classics, classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in ''literae humaniores'' and t ...

. Originally written in 1895, it was first published as the second poem in his collection ''

A Shropshire Lad ''A Shropshire Lad'' is a collection of 63 poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman, published in 1896. Selling slowly at first, it then rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the poems to ...

'', where it appeared under the Roman numeral II, but without other title. It is usually referred to by its first line. Its theme, voiced by a young man contemplating

cherry blossom The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...

, is the transitoriness of life and beauty, and the need to enjoy them while they last. It is probably Housman's best-known poem, and one of the most anthologized of English lyrics. Its opening line has become a part of the language, "inextricably lodged in the public mind and vocabulary". In a 1995 poll it was chosen as one of the British people's 100 favourite poems. It has been set to music over 60 times.

Text

Composition

The original draft of the poem, the manuscript of which still survives, has been dated to April or May 1895. This first version consists of only two stanzas reading as follows: The middle stanza was composed later, and reached its present state only after much rewriting. "Loveliest of trees" was first published, without title, as the second poem in his collection ''A Shropshire Lad'' (1896).

Metre

The poem consists of three four-line stanzas in rhyming couplets. With one exception the lines are

iambic tetrameter Iambic tetrameter is a meter (poetry), poetic meter in Ancient Greek poetry, ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of ''a rhythm'', iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form , x – u – , , consisting of a spo ...

s, but this metre is disrupted by the first word, ''Loveliest''.

Themes

In common with several other of the ''Shropshire Lad'' poems, including "Bredon Hill" and " Is my team ploughing", "Loveliest of trees" is a poem dealing with the English seasons. It also presents a young, naïve and innocent man's realization of his own mortality seen through the analogy of the short-lived blossom of the typical – rather than of any individual – cherry tree. This melancholy theme is relieved by the message that beauty is to be enjoyed while it can be; that it is indeed their very evanescence that make the cherry blossoms and life as a whole so valuable, and that ageing and death are just as important as youth and beauty in making the complete life in all its richness. Housman chose as his symbol of transient beauty a subject close to his heart. The gardens of Housman's childhood home boasted a locally famous cherry tree; for several years in the 1890s he recorded in his diary the flowering of cherry trees; and in his latter years he was responsible for the planting of an avenue of cherry trees at his college.

Analogues and sources

The "threescore years and ten" of the poem allude to Psalms 90:10, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten". Other verbal and thematic sources of the poem have been suggested in lines from Shakespeare's ''

The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...

'', Marlowe's ''

The Jew of Malta ''The Jew of Malta'' (full title: ''The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta'') is a play by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589 or 1590. The plot primarily revolves around a Maltese Jewish merchant named Barabas. The original story combi ...

'',

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a folkloristics, collector of folklore, folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectur ...

's "The Last Maying", Robert Louis Stevenson's '' Underwoods'', and

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was a British poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

' "Spring Goeth All in White".

Reception

"Loveliest of trees" was from the first judged by critics to be one of ''A Shropshire Lads best poems.

Hubert Bland Hubert Bland (3 January 1855 – 14 April 1914) was an English author. He was known for being an infamous libertine, a journalist, an early English socialist, and one of the founders of the Fabian Society. He was the husband of Edith Nesbit. Ea ...

, reviewing that volume in ''

The New Age ''The New Age'' was a British weekly magazine (1894–1938),credited as a major influence on literature and the arts during its heyday from 1907 to 1922, when it was edited by Alfred Richard Orage. It published work by many of the chief politi ...

'', wrote of the "per ectsimplicity

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

Mr Housman has given it with the swift, unfaltering touch of a master's hand". John Bell Henneman, in another review of the same book, singled it out for high praise. The enthusiasm continued in the

inter-war years In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

Iolo Aneurin Williams Captain Iolo Aneurin Williams (18 June 1890 – 18 January 1962), was a British writer, journalist and Liberal Party politician. His son was the composer Edward Williams. Background Williams was born in Middlesbrough, the son of Aneurin Williams, ...

thought that "The loveliness of the English spring has perhaps never been put more feelingly, more exquisitely". Charles Williams considered it as exquisite a nature-poem as any in English. Nevile Watts instanced it as one of the Housman poems which, save for their lack of "magic", show him to have been worthy of "a seat beside the two greatest of our lyrists –

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

and Blake".

Louis Untermeyer Louis Untermeyer (October 1, 1885 – December 18, 1977) was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961. Life and career Untermeyer was born in New Yo ...

believed it to be arguably the finest lyric in the language. One dissenting voice came from

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

, who thought it exemplified Housman's lack of any "gift for illuminating or transmuting things seen. What oes the last stanza of "Loveliest of trees"add to our experience? Nothing." Many more recent critics have been similarly dismissive, Benjamin T. Fisher noting in 2000 that from "some recent critiques of 'Loveliest of trees'...we might come away thinking how, in reality, this is one of the veriest bits of versified trash, in theme and technique, that has ever masqueraded as poetry". Peter Edgerly Firchow, for example, considered it a failure, the second stanza being too convoluted and verbose to perform its pivotal role in the poem, and nature being presented in too abstract a form. Terence Allan Hoagwood, on the other hand, praised the "complexity of feeling that is remarkable given the simple (and few) words that Housman has used", and D. T. Siebert called it "a little masterpiece of ''

carpe diem () is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work '' Odes'' (23 BC). Translation is the second-person singular present active imperative of '' carpō'' "pick or pluck" used by Ho ...

''". Its popularity with readers is much more clear-cut. In 1995, in a poll conducted by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, it was selected as one of the British nation's 100 favourite poems.

Musical settings

No book of verse since the time of Shakespeare has been turned to by English songwriters so often as ''A Shropshire Lad'', and of the poems contained therein "Loveliest of trees" is one of the most frequently set, over 60 such songs and choral works being known. These include settings by *

George Butterworth George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll '' The Banks of Green Willow'' and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from '' A Shropshire Lad''. He wa ...

, in '' Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad'' *

Henryk Górecki Henryk Mikołaj Górecki ( , ; 6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a l ...

Ivor Gurney Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in psy ...

, in ''The Western Playland'' and again in ''Five Songs'' * David Matthews, in ''Three Housman Songs'' * E. J. Moeran *

C. W. Orr Charles Wilfred Leslie Orr, generally known as C. W. Orr (31 July 1893 – 24 February 1976), was an English composer. He is particularly noted for his songs, though his output was small. He wrote only 35 songs in 82 years, 24 of them settin ...

* Graham Peel, in ''Songs of a Shropshire Lad'' * Sir

Arthur Somervell Sir Arthur Somervell (5 June 18632 May 1937) was an English composer and educationalist. After Hubert Parry, he was one of the most successful and influential writers of art song in the English music renaissance of the 1890s–1900s. According t ...

, in ''A Shropshire Lad''. In addition, Butterworth used his setting of the poem as the basis of his orchestral rhapsody ''

''.

Footnotes

References

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External links

{{wikisource-inline, A_Shropshire_Lad/Loveliest_of_trees,_the_cherry_now, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now 1895 poems Cherry blossom Poems about trees Poetry by A. E. Housman