Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
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8
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!
9 And after April, when May follows,
10 And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
11 Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
12 Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
13 Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge-14 That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
15 Lest you should think he never could recapture
16 The first fine careless rapture!
17 And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
18 All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
19 The buttercups, the little children's dower
20--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
Online text copyright © 2005, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto
Libraries.
Original text: Robert Browning, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).
First publication date: 1845
RPO poem editor: J. D. Robins
RP edition: 2RP 2.425.
Recent editing: 2:2001/12/17
Form: irregular, couplets and quatrains
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/278.html
Summary
"Home-Thoughts, From Abroad" celebrates the everyday and the domestic, taking the form of a short
lyric. The poet casts himself in the role of the homesick traveler, longing for every detail of his beloved
home. At this point in his career, Browning had spent quite a bit of time in Italy, so perhaps the longing
for England has a bit of biographical urgency attached to it. The poem describes a typical springtime
scene in the English countryside, with birds singing and flowers blooming. Browning tries to make the
ordinary magical, as he describes the thrush's ability to recreate his transcendental song over and over
again.
Except for the poem's rhyme scheme and number of lines, it resembles an inverted sonnet: it divides
into two sections, each of which is characterized by its own tone. The first, shorter stanza establishes the
emotional tenor of the poem-- the speaker longs for his home. This section contains two trimeter lines,
followed by two tetrameter lines, three pentameter lines, and a final trimeter line; it rhymes
ABABCCDD. The metrical pattern and the rhyme scheme give it a sort of rising and falling sense that
mirrors the emotional rise and fall of the poem's central theme: the burst of joy at thinking of home,
then the resignation that home lies so far away.
The second section is longer, and consists almost entirely of pentameter lines, save the eighth line,
which is tetrameter. It rhymes AABCBCDDEEFF. The more even metrical pattern and more drawn-out
rhyme plan allow for a more contemplative feel; it is here that the poet settles back and thinks on the
progress of the seasons that cycle outside of him. In its metrical irregularity and surprising last line, as
well as its overall tone, the poem suggests the work of Emily Dickinson.
Commentary
This seemingly simple little poem reacts in quite complex ways to both Romanticism and the
development of the British Empire. The domestic bliss and rapturous exchange with nature that
characterize many Romantic poems emerge here as the constructions of people who do not live the life
about which they write. But these constructions were integral to an illusion of "Rural England" that
served as a crucial background for many philosophical ideas, and as a powerful unifying principle for
many Britons: as the British Empire grew, and more British citizens began to live outside the home
islands, maintaining a mythical conception of "England" became important as a way to differentiate
oneself from the colonies' native population. As works like Forster's A Passage to India show, the
British abroad in the colonies (such as India) worked much harder at being British than their
compatriots in London. Thus in this period, sentimental thoughts of the English countryside, such as
the ones in this poem, hardly ever present a pure nostalgia; rather, they carry a great deal of ideological
weight.
Nevertheless this poem contains much sincerity. Browning had left Britain, although he lived in Italy
and not in a British colony. And as is evident from the poem, his relationship with "home" was a
troubled one: although the speaker here longs for home, he doesn't miss it enough to live there. Perhaps
some things are best appreciated from abroad; perhaps some emotions are felt more acutely away from
home. And perhaps, as this light little poem implies, it is only away from "home" that one can create
serious dramatic poetry.
Robert Browning
Elisabeth Barrett
The Ring and the Book