Tuesday Poem: “Home Thoughts From Abroad” by Robert Browning
Home Thoughts From Abroad
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 whitethroat builds, and all the swallows —
Hark! where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
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,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
Robert Browning, 1812-1889
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Again this week, I’m continuing my Tuesday Poem theme of poems on a theme of summer, although technically this is as much spring as early summer. Nonetheless it’s a wonderful poem and a longtime favourite—and you really just can’t beat a line like: “The first fine careless rapture!” (Imho.)
Despite the plus-200 year time difference between their era’s, Browning’s poem, like Shakespeare’s sonnet last week, is distinguished for me by its accessability, as well as the beauty and richness of the language. In both cases, I also really love the way the end rhyme is almost ‘invisible’ because it’s so seamless—the rhymes don’t jar the reader out of the poem, as a lesser rhyming scheme too-often does. But when you recite the poems aloud—ah, then you hear it, the fluidity and the power of those rhymes.
To read a biography of the poet, see Poets.Org: Robert Browning.
To read another Browning poem, featured here in 2010, click on Ferrara: My Last Duchess
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