Spring Envy: Two Poems

In lieu of thoughtful reflections on Life I offer this silliness -- which seems especially apt today -- pouring icy rain and no sun in the forecast here, while England, which I left only 2 weeks ago, is enjoying lovely, unseasonable weather.

There is hope here - in my friend Kris’s garden. Iris reticulata in variety, already in bloom. I knew these as a kid, and was so envious of Kris’s patch that I planted some last fall, but they are only tiny green spikes so far.

Here are two poems - Browning’s original - an old favorite - and my bad parody!!

Robert Browning

Home Thoughts, from Abroad

O, 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 boughIn England—now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossom'd 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!

Home Thoughts from a broad.

By Claire Ackroyd. With apologies to Robert Browning

Oh to be in Orono,

Now that April’s here

For whoever wakes in Orono

Will be taken unaware,

By the thawing piles of mud and shite

Or the sudden freeze, that overnight

Silences peepers that were starting to sing.

Its Orono’s spring.

And after April, when May follows

And the barn fills up with pooping swallows.

See, where the wind throws branches through

The greenhouse skin,  and barn door hinges

Break  in the gales - and warm days bring anew

Swarms of biting flies: big ones, and tiny minges       

And you forget that thing you thought to learn -

How easily May sun can burn.

And though the ground is brown and seeming warm

All will be dead when yet another storm

Kills the new seedlings - your hopeful early start.

This life’s not suited to the faint of heart.