Oh, to be in England!

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 (1812-1889)

I was never really a fan of Robert Browning in my youth. I thought him weary and trite and too fond of the Romantic poets for his own good. Now, as I approach my own 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', I find I'm starting to rather like him. Is this a natural consequence of ageing, I wonder?

Also, I know that he was from down south and so probably writing about the Home Counties' countryside, but I can't help connecting his words with the Lake District. I get my fix of this beautiful place through Tony Richards' Lakeland Cam website. Every day the erstwhile postman takes photos of the region on his daily walks and posts them to his site.

I love to look and them and sigh, and although they fill me with homesickness, I wouldn't miss them for the world. Because my parents have a house there, the pictures often show their road; their village; their pub; even their house.

I've walked and run over those hills; I've eaten in those tea-shops and I've drunk (and been drunk) in those pubs. Looking at these pictures every day is the most exquisite form of nostalgia.

I love the lambs and the flowers and the trees and the grass and the little grey villages surrounded by hills. And at this time of year, when we in the southern hemisphere are cold and wet and windy, everything looks so green. It's very hard to take spring pictures (as I've discovered) - cameras don't seem to be able to cope well with the dappled light effect through the whispering leaves. Tony Richards manages to capture it effortlessly.

Green is my favourite colour and it bursts out of these pictures with a glad welcome. Oh, to be in England indeed...