A Life of Faith: Poetry

I've saved most of my college literature books.
Last night I sat down with one of my gigantic British literature anthologies.
I was feeling bad about all the dust it had been collecting.

As I started flipping through the pages,
I remembered how spiritually meaningful it has been to me to read poetry.
Maybe that's why I ended up an English Literature major.
In the midst of a wonderful, busy college life,
I'd find time each day to curl up in my favorite spot on the 3rd floor of the Wartburg College library. It was there that I fell in love with words.

Here's one poem I love and re-encountered last night:

Loveliest of Trees
by A.E. Housman

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 then,
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.


What poems/authors inspire you?