Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 9 August 2025

 

A Shropshire Lad – A.E. Houseman –XXIV

Say, lad, have you things to do?

Quick then, while your day's at prime.

Quick, and if 'tis work for two,

Here am I, man: now's your time.

Send me now, and I shall go;

Call me, I shall hear you call;

Use me ere they lay me low

Where a man's no use at all;

Ere the wholesome flesh decay,

And the willing nerve be numb,

And the lips lack breath to say,

"No, my lad, I cannot come."

Every day I go to my back lane garden to see what my English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ is doing. With the weather alternating with heat and some cold nights the Lad’s blooms have strange transformations that would upset my friends of the Vancouver Rose Society who admire and love perfection. I see in the blooms that I cut today a beauty of imperfection and its connection with its closeness to death.

I am going to a wedding tonight of my friend Dave Chesney. He was a highfalutin record rep (when they were powerful) for CBS Records and Sony. He gave us (Les Wiseman of Vancouver Magazine’s important In One Ear Column) access to visiting rock stars. We would interview and photograph them back stage or in their hotel rooms.

 Chesney is now a White Rock City Councillor. In his honour I am wearing a suit (a Bill Blass suit) for the first time in years. I shaved and then I looked at myself in the mirror. At my almost 83 years I am simply one of those Shropshire Lad blooms about to meet their botanical oblivion.