An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry

Home Thoughts, from Abroad.

       1.

     Oh, to be in England now that April’s there,
     And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
     That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
     Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
     While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
     In England—now!
     And after April, when May follows
     And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
     Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
     Leans to the field and scatters on the clover           {10}
     Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
     That’s the wise thrush:  he sings each song twice over
     Lest you should think he never could recapture
     The first fine careless rapture!
     And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
     And will be gay when noontide wakes anew
     The buttercups, the little children’s dower
   —Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

{despite this stanza being numbered 1, there is apparently no 2.}