The little children's dower

As we walked across the Green this morning I was entranced by the sight of the clover and all the buttercups growing in profusion amidst the tall grasses.  As always, the words of Browning’s famous poem "Home thoughts, from abroad" ran through my mind. 

My mother, who lived in a poor area of central London, was nevertheless taught at school to learn that poem off by heart as a young girl, and I can remember her often quoting the the lines about the thrush singing each song twice over. I too enjoy learning poems off by heart, and this is one of those that I have memorised because it perfectly sums up my love of the English countryside.

I couldn’t resist adding a few more photos in the extras which I took in my garden this morning when I went out to do the dead heading. The first is of a couple of emerging buds from one of my "Pretty Lady" rose bushes, then a bee on a Green Alkanet plant followed by a view across the parterre of a couple of "Blessings" roses, and one of the white "Silver Anniversary" roses which encircle the (as yet) empty central urn.

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!

Robert Browning