Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Browning. 18121889729. Home-thoughts, from Abroad
O, 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 | 5 |
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! | 10 |
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 | 15 |
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! | 20 |