ON HEARING THE SHOUTS OF THE PEOPLE AT THE READING ELECTION, IN THE SUMMER OF 1826, AT A DISTANCE
HARK! from the distant town the long acclaim
On the charmed silence of the evening breaks
With startling interruption; yet it wakes
Thought of that voice of never-dying fame
Which on my boyish meditation came
Here, at an hour like this;—my soul partakes
A moment’s gloom, that yon fierce contest slakes
Its thirst of high emprise and glorious aim:
Yet wherefore? Feelings that from Heaven are shed
Into these tenements of flesh ally
Themselves to earthly passions, lest, unfed
By warmth of human sympathies, they die;
And shall—earth’s fondest aspirations dead—
Fulfil their first and noblest prophecy.
Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd was an active and ambitious politician. He did not win election in 1826. He was elected Member of Parliament for Reading in 1835.