The speaker takes his remaining fifty years and states that they still represent “little room.” Together with the use of “only” earlier, the speaker presents his life as limited in terms of time and space. He is essentially saying that fifty years is still not enough time to truly appreciate all the beauty in the world, much less just the loveliness of the cherry trees.

The adverb “only” creates a sense of termination, of finality. This serves as an indication that although the speaker believes he has fifty years left, a large number by most measurements, they still are not enough for what he wants to experience.

The idea that the cherry trees are “wearing white for Eastertide” conveys several important things. First, the notion that the trees have dressed up for Easter is an example of personification, that the trees have minds and qualities similar to humans. Second, this personification emphasizes a closeness, or a mutual understanding, between the trees and the speaker; the speaker identifies with the trees. Finally, this closeness emphasizes not only the beauty that the speaker witnesses in the trees, but his ability to see his own life through this experience.

In this context, the noun “ride” refers to a path or track that has been made for traveling by carriage or on horseback. This word also subtly indicates movement, possibly on the part of the speaker as he walks through the woods admiring the cherry trees.

In contrast with the passive structure in the previous line, this is an example of active phrasing. The speaker indicates that the cherry trees stand on either side of the path. While subtle, this grammatical shift helps convey the strong presence of these trees in the woodland area and the visual power of their blooms in the eyes of the speaker. Additionally, active phrasing helps convey a kind of intensity or agency, and we’ll shortly see how these cherry blossoms affect the speaker’s views on how to live his life.

By saying that “the cherry now / Is hung,” Housman’s speaker employs what’s known as a passive construction. Such constructions focus on what happens to an object rather than the subject performing the object. However, there is still a suggestion that someone or something performs this “hanging of blooms” since the verb “to hang” connotes an idea of decoration. This conveys a somewhat festive tone, as if the speaker is participating in a ceremony.

To build on the notion of beauty as transience, the choice of a cherry tree has additional, symbolic meanings depending on one’s cultural background. However, in general cherry trees symbolize the beauty and brevity of life because their flowers are so short lived. As a symbol, the cherry blossoms can teach us to appreciate each moment, emphasize new beginnings, or glorify nature’s bounty.

This is the superlative form of the adjective “love.” When an adjective takes this form, it indicates that there is nothing that can compare with its particular quality; it is the exemplary form. For many poets and writers, the subject of loveliness or beauty has been explored through mortality or transience. Housman follows suit in this poem by choosing the cherry as the “loveliest of trees” because their flowering season is very short, emphasizing this idea of beauty as passing.

In the Christian tradition, “Eastertide” lasts from Easter Sunday at the beginning of April to Pentecost, seven Sundays after Easter. The reference to Easter suggests the speaker’s Christian backdrop and hints at the Biblical connotations of the following line. However, notice that the speaker never contemplates the afterlife or God as he contemplates beauty and mortality.

The color white is generally symbolic of innocence, purity, and peace. For example, in the Christian tradition, children wear white when they are baptized and confirmed into the Church. Notice that the speaker is interpreting nature through a Christian lens.

This final conclusion suggests that Housman’s poem is a carpe diem poem. The speaker realizes that his time on earth is limited and chooses to embrace life to its fullest rather than sink into despair. Like many other carpe diem poems, Housman’s narrator understands the brevity of his life through nature and the beauty of spring. However, Housman deviates from this common theme in his tone. While other carpe diem poems focus on images of winter, decay, and death, this poem focuses on the awesome beauty of these trees in this particular moment. In this way, it embodies the form in a new way: the speaker lingers on this exact moment instead of his eventual decay.

Changing seasons are often used in poetry to metaphorically describe the stages of a person’s life. Spring is youth, summer is adulthood, fall is middle age, and winter is old age. By “snow” the speaker suggests that he will look at nature in all seasons, winter included, because there is too much to see and appreciate with his limited time. However, he also metaphorically means that he will continue to go out and look at the cherry trees into his old age.

The speaker uses the word “things,” objects that one need not or cannot give a specific name to, in order to emphasize the many things he must pay attention to and has not yet experienced. The speaker uses the word “things” to remind readers that there is so much to observe in the world in bloom, and that they must keep their eyes open to everything.

Remember that “score” means 20, much like modern speakers might say dozen instead of 12. The speaker is reiterating his projected length of life, 70 years (“seventy springs), and subtracting the 20 that he has already lived to arrive at the conclusion that he will only see 50 more springtimes.

When read with the preceding line, “twenty” is a measurement of age. The speaker is stating that of his total 70 years, he has already lived 20. That it “will not come again” suggests that he is over 20, or that his 20th year has passed.

This phrase, “threescore years and ten,” comes from Psalms 90: “the days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” In this passage, people are stated to live to 70 years old; they can live to 80, but only with great labor and sorrow, perhaps because they know there is a limit to their strength and their death is inevitable. Shakespeare also references this particular measurement of time in Macbeth. The speaker uses this allusion to explain his confidence that he will live 70 years and appears to draw comfort from the knowledge of this fixed time.

The noun “score” in this context means a period of twenty years. So, “threescore” is 60 years, onto which the speaker adds 10. In this line, the speaker takes possession of these years with the possessive pronoun “my.” The line can therefore be read as the speaker’s prediction that he will live 70 years.