Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By William Wordsworth (17701850)Written in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge
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! | 5 |
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, | 10 |
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. | |