blog-maryBlog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 


Robert Browning – 4 April 2009
By Mary T. Hoffman

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, a suburb of London, in 1812. In 1844 Browning met Elizabeth Barrett, when he called to thank her for a compliment she had paid him in one of her poems. After their marriage in 1846, they lived in Italy until her death in 1861. He moved to England to educate their son but later returned to Venice, where he died in 1889. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in England.

Since it is April, I’ve chosen for today this poem (in which Browning mentions April):

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
Robert Browning (1812–1889)

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!

For a large collection of poetry and stories, visit:
http://www.all-creatures.org/poetrydir.html

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