| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Home-thoughts, from Abroad | | By Robert Browning (1812–1889) |
| | | 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 | | | |
|
|
