Nowadays, we think of A.E. Housman as an incredibly important poet, but in his lifetime he was better known as a famous Latin professor at Cambridge. In fact, he didn't speak publicly about his poetry until 1933, which was only 3 years before his death in 1936. This is largely because for Housman poetry was a diversion, a hobby, something to do when not engaged in the more serious work of classical scholarship. Even though he thought of himself as a scholar more than a poet, Housman was indeed a fine poet. The guy wrote many, many famous poems ("To an Athlete Dying Young" and "When I was One-and-Twenty," to name just two).

Those poems, along with "Loveliest of Trees," come from a volume Housman published in 1896 called A Shropshire Lad. Despite its title, the book isn't about a lad from Shropshire (a county in western England), but about a bunch of lads who pass in and out of a place that is geographically similar to Shropshire (rural, pretty, quiet). Apparently nobody liked the poems because Housman had to fund its publication with his own money (harsh). He would have the last laugh, however, as the book became wildly popular in the later 1890s (during the Second Boer War), and again around World War I, largely because the book's obsession with the death of young men struck a chord with a populace that experienced the death of so many young men during those two gruesome conflicts. Good for Housman, we guess?

While "Loveliest of Trees" isn't really Housman's most tragic poem, it's still a poem about death. The speaker talks about how the cherry tree is the loveliest of trees, but then realizes that he's 20 years old and will only live another 50 years. Life is short, and this guy knows it. It's up to him to make the most of the time he's got. It's up to him to "seize the day"—carpe diem, as they say.

Let's just say your dad's a big baseball fan. He's got season tickets to the local team's home games—something he inherited them from his dad, who inherited from his dad, and eventually you too will inherit them. Now, every once in a while you attend a game with him, when you've got nothing else going on, but for the most part baseball isn't your thing.

Now let's keep supposing: one day you get dragged to a game and something just hits you. You won't be around forever to go to these games. Your dad will pass on one day and then—so will you. In this new light, suddenly the game becomes one of the coolest things ever. The stands are packed, everybody is pumped for the festivities, and it's like you're seeing the experience for the first time. At that moment, you vow to go to as many ball games as you can with the time you have.

That's the modern day version of A.E. Housman's "Loveliest of Trees" to a T. Instead of a baseball game, substitute cherry blossoms, and you have pretty much the same scenario. Okay, sure, maybe comparing baseball to cherry trees is a bit like comparing apples to kiwis. But the point of our story, and of "The Loveliest Trees," isn't the blossoms or the ballgames. The point is that you really should try to experience, and appreciate, life as much as possible. Not to resort to clichés or anything, but… well, life is short. There's no point sitting around and not making the most of it.

The most common way to encourage somebody to make the most of it is to say carpe diem, a Latin phrase that means "seize the day." "Seize the day" means, essentially, "get everything you can out of today, because you may not be here tomorrow." Whether you're "seizing" a hotdog at the ballpark, or taking a woodland stroll past the cherry blossoms, it's the same principle. Make the most of it, folks—while you can.