A Romantic Poem from the Victorian Era?

These blog assignments seem to always catch me by surprise. Just when I think all I really need to do this weekend is write a paper for another class of mine, I realize on Friday morning that I have another blog to do. *sigh*

I thought I might do it on Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” because the name sounds interesting but I think I might save that for the Victorian Era exam essay…

I at least made the decision that I would do it on a Robert Browning poem. I chose “Home-Thought, From Abroad.” It’s short. I didn’t chose it because I was lazy...although I am. I chose it because if it’s short I can insert the whole poem into this blog and talk about the whole thing and not just a piece.

“Home-Thoughts, From Abroad”

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!

It's interesting, this poem. It seems very similar to those we read at the beginning of the year during the Romanticism era in that it speaks of nature. There's not much that I can say to you that can't be discerned by a simple reading of Browning's simple language. It's really all about nature and what England is like in the spring around the months of April and May. The imagery is fantastic about the countryside, singing birds and flowers blooming. Browning clearly is attempting (and succeeding) at making the ordinary ways of spring sound magical (as if he's describing nature through Disney-fogged glasses). In writing this poem he has taken up a role as a homesick traveler longing for home. Biographically, this poem was written in 1845. This strikes close to home as Browning had been away from England in Italy for quite a time.

The form is that of a short lyric with an easily detectable rhyme scheme of couplets with an odd man out in line 7. This odd man out is where there is a stanza break. The rhyme scheme is ABABCCDD then AABCBCDDEEFF. The stanza break also allows for a structure in the story-line. The first stanza reminisces about the joys that are taking place at home but in the second stanza, Browning admits a sense of resignation that England is so far away.

Photo Sources - 

Spring: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/signs_of_spring.html

Snow White: http://blogs.cofc.edu/thelilitheffect/2011/02/16/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who%E2%80%99s-the-lamest-princess-of-them-all/