The speaker walks a lane he has often travelled, but this evening it feels like nowhere else he has ever been. The place becomes home in a profound way, so much so that he feels he shares a nationality and a memory with the birds singing around him. They welcome him back, and the April mist and chill mean something both familiar and strange, yet without any barrier between them. A thrush’s song blends with another’s, each nearing its end, and neither the birds nor the speaker actively know the day is done — they simply feel it winding down. A labourer passes with a slow, weary-but-easy tread, and from a shed the sound of sawing fills the silence, rounding it out with a quiet sense of shared, lived time.
Home — Summary
OFTEN I had gone this way before: But now it seemed I never could be And never had been anywhere else; 'Twas home; one nationality We had, I and the birds that sang, One memory.
They welcomed me. I had come back That eve somehow from somewhere far: The April mist, the chill, the calm, Meant the same thing familiar And pleasant to us, and strange too, Yet with no bar.
The thrush on the oaktop in the lane Sang his last song, or last but one; And as he ended, on the elm Another had but just begun His last; they knew no more than I The day was done.
Then past his dark white cottage front A labourer went along, his tread Slow, half with weariness, half with ease; And, through the silence, from his shed The sound of sawing rounded all That silence said.