Wearing white for Eastertide

Not being much of an expert on identifying things in the natural world, I often have to consult Google for information. Just recently I’ve been confused when trying to identify the white blossom which could be blackthorn, or it could be wild cherry. 

But when I saw Rainette’s beautiful photo yesterday of a prunus tree on a woodland walk, which she described as ‘quite bridal’ it galvanised me into going out for a walk to a nearby corner of Epping Forest to search for some wild cherry to upload for myself (although I think the blossom in this photo may well be blackthorn, but who cares!)

I confess there was an ulterior motive. I’m a lover of A. E. Housman’s poem from A Shropshire Lad about the wild cherry, and have also enjoyed reading a riposte by Wendy Cope to that very poem in Carol Ann Duffy’s book  "Answering Back", which is a compilation of poetry written by current poets in response to well-known poems by earlier poets.

As can be seen in this post https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2940656115370690148, the riposte is particularly apt in my case!

So I dedicate this photo to https://www.blipfoto.com/Rainette for the inspiration, and also to  https://www.blipfoto.com/Honeycombebeach for reasons she will understand!

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 three score 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.

A. E. Housman

… and Wendy Cope’s riposte:

Reading Housman, knowing he
Ran out of springs and will not see
Another flowering cherry tree,
I sniff and wipe away a tear.
Then Molesworth mutters in my ear,
“Does peotry make you blub, my dere?”