When winter is finally over and summer floods the world with birdsong and blossom, an insistent, tender voice calls out to a beloved. The speaker of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge’s “Come Home!” doesn’t simply ask someone to return — she paints a paradise of long, happy twilight hours, gleaming berries above a stream, and fields ripening to gold. The mood is heady and full of yearning, as if the very richness of the season could erase any past hurt. She promises to crown the returning partner “Queen among / The Queens of summer and of song,” lifting an ordinary homecoming into a realm of myth and melody. There’s a gentle urgency here: every bright detail is a bribe, every image a whispered “think no wrong.” It’s a love poem that feels like a sun-warmed, honeyed breath — intimate, hopeful, and rooted in the conviction that the world without this one person has no equal.
Come Home! — Summary
When wintry winds are no more heard, And joy's in every bosom, When summer sings in every bird, And shines in every blossom, When happy twilight hours are long, Come home, my love, and think no wrong!
When berries gleam above the stream And half the fields are yellow, Come back to me, my joyous dream, The world hath not thy fellow! And I will make thee Queen among The Queens of summer and of song.