A Shropshire Lad

After yomping across first Gloucestershire then Oxford with Charlie last week, I felt a lighter day was in order. This then is simply a (3 shot HDR) rose in the back garden; a Shropshire Lad. There's apparently a lad and a lass, with the latter being more open petalled and climbing.

On checking which was which, because no gardener I, I came across the poems of Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) and the sixty three poems gathered under the title "A Shropshire Lad", and I was very taken with number 26.

Along the field as we came by 
A year ago, my love and I, 
The aspen over stile and stone 
Was talking to itself alone. 
"Oh who are these that kiss and pass? 
A country lover and his lass; 
Two lovers looking to be wed; 
And time shall put them both to bed, 
But she shall lie with earth above, 
And he beside another love." 

And sure enough beneath the tree 
There walks another love with me, 
And overhead the aspen heaves 
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves; 
And I spell nothing in their stir, 
But now perhaps they speak to her, 
And plain for her to understand 
They talk about a time at hand 
When I shall sleep with clover clad, 
And she beside another lad.

How very modern of him. What goes around comes around, eh.