Home-Thoughts, from Abroad Summary & Analysis
by Robert Browning

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The Full Text of “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad”

1Oh, to be in England

2Now that April's there,

3And whoever wakes in England

4Sees, some morning, unaware,

5That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

6Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

7While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

8In England—now!

9And after April, when May follows,

10And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

11Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

12Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

13Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—

14That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

15Lest you should think he never could recapture

16The first fine careless rapture!

17And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

18All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

19The buttercups, the little children's dower

20—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Introduction

    • "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" is English poet Robert Browning's tale of homesickness and longing. Visiting some exotic foreign country, the poem's speaker can only think of the springtime beauty of their native England. The speaker's wistful memory of every detail of an English spring, from buttercups to birdsong, suggests that homesickness has the power to disenchant even the pleasantest travels: to this speaker, there's no place like home. This poem first appeared in Browning's 1845 collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Summary

    • Oh, if only I were in England, now that it's April. Whoever wakes up in England in the springtime will, one morning, be surprised to see that the low branches and the undergrowth around the elm tree are starting to put out fresh little leaves, and to hear that the chaffinches are singing in the orchards. That's what's happening in England, right now!

      And spring in England is still wonderful when May comes along—when the whitethroat (another songbird) builds its nest, and the swallows build theirs. Listen! Over there in my pear tree, which is covered in blossoms, and leans over the hedge dropping petals and dew onto the clover-covered field—from the tip of that tree's bending branches, you can hear the thrush. This wise bird always repeats his song, so no one makes the mistake of thinking that he can't sing a song so effortless, beautiful, and joyful twice. And while the fields look raggedy and grey when they're wet with dew in the morning, they'll soon seem to overflow with delight when the bright sun of noon again wakes up the buttercups, the flowers that grow especially for little kids. Those buttercups are much lovelier than this garish melon blossom I see next to me now!

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Themes

    • Theme The Power of Homesickness

      The Power of Homesickness

      The speaker of “Home-thoughts, from Abroad” is spending their time “abroad” in a lush landscape blossoming with “melon-flower[s]”—but all they really want is to be at home in England. England might not be exotic or exciting, but it’s the place the speaker loves best, and thus has a hold on the speaker that no foreign beauty can displace. The speaker’s wistful visions of England’s springtime loveliness suggests that homesickness is a powerful and poignant force.

      Springtime awakens the speaker’s yearning for home: no spring “abroad,” in the speaker’s view, can possibly match the delicate loveliness of English “blossoms and dewdrops.” With a passionate cry—“Oh, to be in England / Now that April’s there”—the speaker falls into a reverie over all the springtime sights and sounds they remember from their native country. The speaker’s detailed memories of particular birds and plants—how they sing, when they grow—suggest just how familiar the speaker is with the English spring, and how much they long to experience those comforting, homey sights and sounds again.

      Lost in homesickness and nostalgia, the speaker barely seems to pay attention to the foreign country they’re in at the moment. In fact, they only bring it up to dismiss it! Humble English “buttercups,” they note, are lovelier by far than the “gaudy melon-flower” that grows beside them now. The word “gaudy” here suggests that, under the spell of homesickness, the speaker sees this land’s exotic beauty as rather vulgar and excessive: the simple pleasures of home have a pull that no flashy foreign flora can match.

      By spending long passages of description on the remembered English spring, and barely a line on the speaker’s present surroundings, the poem suggests that homesickness can be overwhelmingly powerful. The speaker’s longing for home means that they barely see the world around them: while the speaker is in the grips of homesickness, only England will do for them.

    • Theme Spring and Renewal

      Spring and Renewal

      The poem’s speaker is full of wistful memories of springtime in England. Even when the speaker is far from home, they know exactly what’s happening “in England—now!”: simply because it’s April, they can say with certainty what plants are growing, what birds are singing, and how the air smells at home. Not only are these visions of spring beautiful, the speaker implies, they’re also comforting: part of the glory of spring, to this speaker, is that one can always count on it to return, renewing the world in just the same ways it always does.

      Thinking of the glories of the English spring from afar, the speaker goes into raptures over the thought of plants from “buttercups” to “brushwood,” and the different songs of the “chaffinch,” the “thrush,” and the “swallow.” These beauties might be humbler than the “gaudy melon-flower” that grows “abroad,” but the mere thought of them moves the speaker deeply: the English spring, to this speaker, has an inimitable loveliness.

      A big part of the glory of spring, in this speaker’s eyes, is that one can count on it! Even from far away, the speaker knows exactly what grows in “April” and in “May,” and what songs the birds are singing. They can even imagine exactly how each day progresses: how the fields look as they shake off the “hoary dew” of the early morning, and how the buttercups open at “noontide.” Spring is delightful not just because it’s beautiful, but because it follows comforting, familiar, timeless rhythms.

      And there’s nothing boring about that predictability. When the speaker describes the “wise thrush” singing its song twice in a row, the songbird might as well be speaking for spring itself, demonstrating that nature can do what might seem impossible: it can “recapture / That first fine careless rapture.” In other words, part of the joy of spring is that it’s always the same—and yet, its beauties feel new and fresh every time they reappear.

      Spring, this poem suggests, is a time of joy, not just because it fills the world with the beauty of new life, but because that new life can always be counted on to return, over and over.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad”

    • Lines 1-4

      Oh, to be in England
      Now that April's there,
      And whoever wakes in England
      Sees, some morning, unaware,

      "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" begins with a wistful sigh. "Oh, to be in England," the speaker says, "Now that April's there." Far from home, this speaker is terribly homesick—especially now that it's springtime. In fact, to this speaker, it seems to be April only "there," in England: wherever they are now, April just doesn't feel the same.

      In these first four lines, the speaker is getting caught up in a reverie, their thoughts carrying them far away from the foreign country where they sit now. What especially catches the speaker's fancy is the morning "whoever wakes in England" looks out their window to see that spring has arrived for real. This poem will capture, not just the speaker's longing for home, but the pure joy of spring renewal.

      Take a look at the way the structure of these first lines captures the speaker's yearning:

      Oh, to be in England
      Now that April's there,
      And whoever wakes in England
      Sees, || some morning, || unaware,

      The diacope on "in England" here (strengthened by enjambments that leave those words prominent at the ends of lines) makes it feel like the speaker's mind is being drawn back, over and over, to their beloved home.

      The caesurae in line 4 create breathy pauses—as if the speaker is anticipating a surprise, barely able to contain their delight. "Whoever wakes in England," that changed rhythm suggests, has no idea of all the beauty that's about to hit them when they draw the curtains "some morning."

    • Lines 5-8

      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!

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    • Lines 9-10

      And after April, when May follows,
      And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

    • Lines 11-14

      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;

    • Lines 14-16

      he sings each song twice over,
      Lest you should think he never could recapture
      The first fine careless rapture!

    • Lines 17-20

      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!

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Symbols

    • Symbol Spring

      Spring

      Spring, in this poem as in many others, symbolizes hope, joy, and renewal.

      When the poem's speaker imagines the English countryside springing to life after the chill of winter, they see spring not just as a beautiful time, but a familiar one. All the same "blossoms" and all the same songbirds can be counted on to turn up and behave just as delightfully as they always do.

      Spring, then, "recapture[s]" its own "first fine careless rapture" just as much as the singing "thrush" does: its recurring beauty is an image of hope and comfort.

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Imagery

      Detailed imagery of an English spring brings the speaker's homesick yearning to life—and lets the reader share that yearning.

      Longing for home from "abroad," this poem's speaker seems almost transported by vivid memories. Take a look at this moment:

      That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
      Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

      Everything in this description is specific. The speaker seems to be getting right up close to the "lowest boughs" and the "elm-tree bole"—close enough to see the "tiny lea[ves]" that are only just beginning to peep out. The particularity of this image manages to conjure up all sorts of other details without even mentioning them: readers can practically see the lively green of those little leaves, and smell the fresh, damp earth.

      A few lines later, the speaker gets even more particular:

      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; [...]

      The speaker doesn't just notice any old "pear-tree" here: it's "my blossomed pear-tree," a tree as familiar as an old friend. Describing this tree leaning over the grass to "scatter[...] blossoms and dewdrops" on the flowery field like gifts, the speaker again hints at even more sensory detail than the poem spells out—the sweetness of the "clover," the coolness of those "dewdrops."

      Imagery even helps the speaker to spend the whole span of a morning in their imagined England:

      And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
      All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
      The buttercups, [...]

      The image of fields "rough with hoary dew" conjures up an early morning when the grass is flattened down under the weight of the dew, its greenness muted. Here, the speaker's imagery works like a time-lapse camera: before the reader's eyes, that dew evaporates, the grass stands up straight, and the "buttercups" open under the warm "noontide" sun. The speaker, these lines suggest, has seen this wonderful phenomenon countless times, enough to be sure that "all will be gay" again.

      The poem's imagery thus immerses readers, not just in a generic English countryside, but in the speaker's own touching memories of an English spring.

    • Repetition

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    • Anthropomorphism

    • Enjambment

    • Caesura

    • Assonance

    • Alliteration

    • Consonance

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Unaware
    • Brushwood sheaf
    • Bole
    • Chaffinch
    • Whitethroat
    • Hark
    • The bent spray
    • Thrush
    • Lest
    • Hoary
    • Gay
    • Dower
    • Gaudy
    Unaware
    • Surprisedly, unexpectedly, without warning.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad”

    • Form

      "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" doesn't follow any traditional form. Instead, Browning shapes the poem to reflect the speaker's emotional journey:

      • First, an eight-line stanza introduces the speaker's longing for home, where spring has just begun.
      • Then, the stanza break makes it seem as if the speaker falls quiet for a moment, reflecting—only to get swept up again in a longer twelve-line stanza of description.

      All in all, this shape suggests that the speaker is brooding a little, alternating between passionate yearning and melancholy quiet. The two stanzas feel like two separate outpourings of feeling; in that meditative break in the middle, readers might imagine the speaker getting lost in a homesick reverie.

    • Meter

      This poem doesn't follow any one pattern of meter. Instead, it changes its surging, emotive rhythms to suit whatever the speaker happens to be describing (and feeling) at the moment.

      For example, take a look at the first stanza. The first four lines here are all in trimeter, meaning they use three strong stresses per line. These lines mostly use trochees (metrical feet with a DUM-da rhythm), but throw in a couple of anapests (metrical feet with a da-da-DUM rhythm) for flavor. Here's how that sounds:

      Oh, to | be in | England
      Now that | April's | there,
      And whoev- | er wakes | in England
      Sees, some | morning, | unaware,

      These lines' rhythms aren't perfectly regular, but they still throb like a heartbeat, helping to evoke the speaker's longing.

      Then, as the speaker gets more and more homesick, the poem switches to longer lines of tetrameterfour strong stresses. Here, the poem weaves anapests together with iambs, feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Listen to the difference:

      That the low | -est boughs | and the brush | -wood sheaf
      Round the elm | -tree bole | are in ti | -ny leaf,
      While the chaf- | finch sings | on the or- | chard bough

      These steady, hypnotic rhythms make the speaker seem caught up in fond memories of an English spring.

      But all that nostalgia come to an abrupt halt in the first stanza's final line:

      In Eng- | landnow!

      This line of iambic dimeter—just two iambs—cuts off the rhythm so firmly that it seems as if the speaker has choked up, remembering suddenly that they're not in the "England" they've just imagined so vividly. A surprising caesura makes that effect even more powerful.

      And this is just a taste of the way the poem uses meter to evoke feeling! The second stanza plays similar tricks. Throughout the poem, the meter feels as organic and spontaneous as the new spring growth it describes—and as emotive as the speaker.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      The poem's varied rhyme scheme moves back and forth between two rhyme patterns. It starts with alternating rhymes like these:

      ABAB

      Then, it moves into rhymed couplets like these:

      CCDD

      Similar patterns appear in the second stanza, which moves from couplets to alternating rhymes to couplets again.

      These sudden swoops between patterns of rhyme evoke the way that nostalgia for the English springtime sweeps the speaker right off their feet. Throughout, the poem's rhymes feel harmonious, sweet, and simple—just like the speaker's memories.

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Speaker

    • This poem's melancholy speaker is very, very English. Even "abroad," in a warm foreign country where the "melon-flower" blooms, all the speaker can think of is how spring is coming along at "home." The speaker's longing for the touching, humble beauties of their native countryside suggests that, no matter where they go, their heart is in England. And their sensitive portrait of the remembered English spring makes them seem like a thoughtful, poetic soul.

      Readers who know a bit about Robert Browning might well interpret this speaker as the poet himself. Browning wrote this poem when he was traveling in Italy—a country where he and his wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, would eventually spend many years. This was a glamorous life, but also a kind of exile, as the pair had to elope there in order to evade Elizabeth's cruel father. Robert would only return to England after Elizabeth's death.

  • “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad” Setting

    • The poem spends most of its time describing a place where the speaker isn't.

      All readers learn about the foreign land the speaker is currently writing from is that the "gaudy melon-flower" blooms there. Readers who are familiar with Browning's biography might suspect that the unnamed foreign country here is Italy, where Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent many years. But the poem itself doesn't say so—an omission that suggests just how little the speaker cares about whatever country they seem to have ended up in, at least at the moment. (Also note that Robert Browning had visited, but not moved, to Italy when this poem was written.)

      It's thus not unreasonable to say that the poem is set, not in that country, but in the speaker's memories of their native land. Homesick and longing for England in the springtime, with its trees coming into "tiny leaf" and its "raptur[ous]" birdsong, the speaker is almost transported there.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad”

      Literary Context

      Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a great Victorian writer—and one quite unlike those around him. Considered a minor poet for most of his early career, Browning became famous toward the end of his life for his wild dramatic monologues: theatrical poems spoken in the voices of characters from murderous Italian dukes to good-hearted 16th-century soldiers. "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad," by contrast, is one of Browning's more personal, intimate poems, clearly rooted in his own experiences.

      Many of Browning's contemporaries didn't quite know what to do with his poetry, which—with its experimental rhythms and sometimes earthy language—rarely conformed to the elegant standards of his time. Many suggested that he'd make a better novelist than a poet. Even Oscar Wilde, a great Browning enthusiast, couldn't resist quipping that "[George] Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning." The Modernist poets of the early 20th century, though, admired Browning's poetry for the very strangeness and narrative vigor that put so many of the Victorians off.

      Browning's greatest influence was, without question, his beloved wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose poetry he deeply admired. This literary duo critiqued and championed each other's work for 14 happy years of marriage. But like many Victorian writers, Browning also followed in the lyrical and imaginative footsteps of the earlier Romantic poets. As a young man, he particularly respected Shelley as both a poet and a radical political thinker.

      While Browning was ahead of his time in many ways, more and more writers and thinkers learned to admire and appreciate his work as the 19th century rolled into its final years. And his reputation has only grown since his death. "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad," with its loving (and patriotic) portrait of an English springtime, is still one of England's favorite poems.

      Historical Context

      "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" draws on Robert Browning's own travels abroad in Italy—a country that would eventually become his home for a time. His emigration was sparked by one of literature's most touching love stories.

      In 1845, Browning paid his first visit to a rising star in the literary world: Elizabeth Barrett. Unusually for a woman writer of the time, Barrett had become wildly famous; Browning was only one of many readers to be moved by her soulful, elegant poetry. He wrote her a fan letter, and the two began a warm correspondence. Eventually, they fell deeply in love.

      Barrett's tyrannical father was having none of it, however. Besides preferring to keep his talented daughter (and her earnings) to himself, he disapproved of Browning, who was several years younger than Barrett—unconventional in a Victorian marriage—and not yet a successful or well-known writer himself. In order to defy Mr. Barrett, the couple had to elope; they left England for Italy in 1846. Outraged, Elizabeth's father disinherited her.

      The newlywed Brownings, undaunted, set up house in Florence, where they would live for the next 14 years. Their careers and their marriage flourished. But, as this poem attests, both knew what it was like to be homesick, too. Robert would one day return to his native country—but only after Elizabeth died in his arms at the age of just 55.

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