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,
Many will not come again,
And take from seventy springs fifty,
I’m only left with some twenty.
And since to look at things in bloom
Twenty springs are little room,
About the parklands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
OK, so the second stanza doesn’t scan, but then I don’t believe Housman was twenty when he wrote it either. And the trees here may not be cherry ones, but they are beautiful and full of flowers this week, so we went to Cave Hill to soak in the spectacle.
First, though, we made the rounds of several gardening stores, picking up an eggplant, three tomatoes, a marigold, banana pepper, bell peppers (2 green, 1 red), a jalapeño, basil, lemon balm, and swiss chard. ($33.56).
Cave Hill spring scene
Then we were off to Cave Hill. The grounds there were simply stunning, and just like at our house, the ducks and geese were frolicking and quacking and honking like mad. Charlaine said that the honking got on her nerves after a while.
At one point we saw an orange fox prowling about; Charlaine said that she hadn’t ever seen a fox in the wild before and I said that its presence here probably had something to do with all those waterfowl nesting about.
We wrapped up the trip with a visit to Burger’s, a wonderful little local grocery store across the street from the cemetery (Charlaine loves to visit fancy little grocery stores).
