Home thoughts from Abroad

 

Damson trees in blossom in the Lyth Valley

Home thoughts from Abroad

by Robert Browning

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 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 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! 

I'm currently proof-reading what I hope is the final edit of 'Lady Serena's Secret' and this came to mind when I was reading one of the key chapters in the middle of the book. Our hero, Hew d'Arras waxes somewhat lyrical about the joys of an English Spring when he notes the charm of nature emerging slowly in the garden whilst attending his friend's wedding. These glorious changes reach their peak in April and May in this country, just as it says in the poem. Hew has been living in India for the last ten years and has forgotten the subtle pull of the English countryside, and the wonder it evokes in the English soul. It is one of the things that has persuaded him to make his home here once more, when he had previously thought he would probably eventually settle somewhere warm and dry in Europe.

An orange tip butterfly (getting rarer by the day) on Honesty flowers

In the 1820's, when the book is set, there was a lot more countryside than there is now, but there remain a few corners where you might be justified in thinking that it probably looked pretty much the same two hundred years ago as it does now. And of course, it is these corners that I particularly treasure. The picture at the top of this post is a case in point - well sort of. I have cropped out the telephone wires of course, and the tarmacadam road, and avoided the passing cars. But one can imagine....!

Primula hiding in the hedgerows

Spring in this part of England (the North West) is probably the most colourful of our seasons (though I may change my mind come summer and autumn (fall). It probably feels so good because it follows on the bleak months of winter, but then the Romantic poets did wax lyrical too. 

'Home thoughts from Abroad' was a standard text when I was a child of ten or so. We learned it by rote, but unlike 'Daffodils' by Wordsworth, it struck a chord with me. Maybe it was the romance of the Browning's story - Robert and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning eloped, and went off to live in Italy to escape her tyrannical father (who disinherited all his children who married). They were both poets of the Romantic era, and Elizabeth was almost stereotypical of the doomed poetess, in that she suffered from poor health (possibly tuberculosis), which was probably another reason why they chose to live in Italy.

The Pear tree, in dire need of a good pruning!

It's not a particularly cerebral poem, but it does catch something of that subtle glory that I was speaking of above. The elms may have all been destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970's, but what a joy it is when one morning you notice those first intense green shoots emerging from any native tree. And, yes, the birdsong is more intense (sometimes too intense at 5.30 in the morning!). And the pear blossom! So bountiful this year - but so beautiful (if only I had pruned the tree properly last year)!

But my favourite lines of all are :

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

Oh those last two lines - the number of times they have sprung to mind when I have seen, felt or heard something beautiful and ephemeral, and paraphrased it: He/ she/it never could recapture, that first fine careless rapture! It reminds me also of those wondrous moments of first young love! Ahh, that fine first careless rapture, indeed!

I am a scientist by training, and I suspect by nature. But deep down somewhere inside of me, I like to think there is a bit of a Romantic. Not a poet for certain, but maybe a storyteller?

Enjoy your Spring, wherever you are!

Detta x