INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE

By William Wordsworth

Tax not the royal Saintwith vain expense,

With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned —

Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only — this immense

And glorious Work of fine intelligence!

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore

Of nicely-calculated less or more;

So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof

Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,

Where light and shade repose, where music dwells

Lingering — and wandering on as loth to die;

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof

That they were born for immortality.