“Home Thoughts from Abroad” by Robert Browning

 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 

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!