Within 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

Lingering -and wandering on as loath to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.