View of the Valley of Reading

From Tilehurst, at the close of the same election

Too long have I regarded thee, fair vale,
But as a scene of struggle which denies
All pensive joy; and now with childhood's eyes
In old tranquillity, I bid thee hail;
And welcome to my soul thy own sweet gale,
Which wakes from loveliest woods the melodies
Of long-lost fancy-Never may there fail
Within thy circlet, spirits born to rise
In honour-whether won by freedom rude
In her old Spartan majesty, or wrought
With partial, yet no base regard, to brood
O'er usages by time with sweetness fraught;
Be thou their glory-tinted solitude,
The cradle and the home of generous thought! sequestered beauty;
Gently our eye descends a sunny slope
Of brightest verdure, bounded by rich meads
Through which a silvery trout-stream rippling winds;
The hedge-rows garnished with tall, spreading elms,
Whose dark and massive foliage well contrasts
With the light poplars ranged along the brook.
Lo! many an antique gable courts the eye,
O’erspread with vines; and many a cloistered nook
Of sweetest shade. No habitation there
But hath its well-stored orchard, or fair croft,
Descending, in its quiet solitude,
To the clear rill that murmurs at its feet.
The hill beyond, which crowns this fairy vision,
Is one wide range of sylvan loveliness,—
Groves, orchards, mingling in confused delight!