A Poem for Spring

Well, April is almost over, and during the last few days it really does feel as Spring is finally here, weeks after its usual arrival. It's definitely warmer than it has been, flowers are blooming everywhere, and leaves on trees and bushes have put on an incredible burst of growth, as if they are trying to make up for lost time. There are masses of butterflies and bees around, and birds are obviously nesting.

So in honour of Spring, today's post is is one of my favourite poems: Home Thoughts, From Abroad, by Robert Browning. I'd always assumed he wrote it while he was living in Italy following his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett, but apparently it was written while he was visiting England in 1845. 

And here's a photo of blossom I took in the hedge alongside the canal. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm positive it's not pear I. think it may be some kind of philadelphus, but whatever it is, t is very delicate, and very spring-like.  

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

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