The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,

The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him are opening paradise.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 53.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 19.

In sober state,

Through the sequestered vale of rural life,

The venerable patriarch guileless held

The tenor of his way.

Beilby Porteus (1731-1808): Death. Line 108.

Spangling the wave with lights as vain

As pleasures in the vale of pain,

That dazzle as they fade.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 23.

Beyond this vale of tears

There is a life above,

Unmeasured by the flight of years;

And all that life is love.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): The Issues of Life and Death.

I am declined

Into the vale of years.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet

As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): The Meeting of the Waters.

Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale,

And guide my lonely way

To where yon taper cheers the vale

With hospitable ray.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Hermit. Chap. viii. Stanza 1.