V: To The Thames At Westminster

IN RECOLLECTION OF THE BANKS OF THE SAME RIVER, AT CAVERSHAM, NEAR READING

With no cold admiration do I gaze
Upon thy pomp of waters, matchless stream!
But home-sick fancy kindles with the beam
That on thy lucid bosom faintly plays;
And glides delighted through thy crystal ways,
Till on her eye those wave-fed poplars gleam,
Beneath whose shade her first ethereal maze
She fashion'd; where she traced in clearest dream
Thy mirror'd course of wood-enshrined repose
Besprent with island haunts of spirits bright;
And widening on--till, at the vision's close,
Great London, only then a name of might
For childish thought to build on, proudly rose
A rock-throned city clad in heavenly light.