II: The Forbury, At Reading

VISITED ON A MISTY EVENING IN AUTUMN

Soft uplands, that in boyhood's earliest days
Seem'd mountain-like and distant, fain once more
Would I behold you! but the autumn hoar
Hath veil'd your pensive groves in evening haze;
Yet must I wait till on my searching gaze
Your outline lives--more dear than if ye wore
An April sunset's consecrating rays--
For, even thus, the images of yore
Which ye awaken glide from misty years
Dream-like and solemn, and but half unfold
Their tale of glorious hopes, religious fears,
And visionary schemes of giant mould;
Whose dimmest trace the world-worn heart reveres,
And, with love's grasping weakness, strives to hold.