Explore "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 brush-wood 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 blossomed 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!