The Poetry Corner

Inside Of King's College Chapel, Cambridge

By William Wordsworth

Tax not the royal Saint with 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 Lingeringand wandering on as loth to die; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.