My eye which, swift as thought, contracts the space
That lies between, and first salutes the place
Crown’d with that sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That, whether ’tis a part of earth or sky,
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud. 
Paul’s, the late theme of such a Muse,[1] whose flight 19
Has bravely reach’d and soar’d above thy height: 
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserved from ruin by the best of kings. 
Under his proud survey the city lies,
And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise;
Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd,
Seems at this distance but a darker cloud: 
And is, to him who rightly things esteems,
No other in effect than what it seems:  30
Where, with like haste, though sev’ral ways, they run,
Some to undo, and some to be undone;
While luxury and wealth, like war and peace,
Are each the other’s ruin and increase;
As rivers lost in seas some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again. 
O happiness of sweet retired content! 
To be at once secure and innocent. 
Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells,
Beauty with strength) above the valley swells 40
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforced ascent,
That no stupendous precipice denies
Access, no horror turns away our eyes: 
But such a rise as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a rev’rence from the sight: 
Thy mighty master’s emblem, in whose face
Sate meekness, heighten’d with majestic grace;
Such seems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the basis of that pompous load, 50
Than which, a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only, which supports the spheres. 
When Nature’s hand this ground did thus advance,
’Twas guided by a wiser power than Chance;
Mark’d out for such an use, as if ’twere meant
T’ invite the builder, and his choice prevent. 
Nor can we call it choice, when what we choose,
Folly or blindness only could refuse. 
A crown of such majestic towers doth grace
The gods’ great mother, when her heavenly race 60
Do homage to her, yet she cannot boast,
Among that num’rous and celestial host. 
More heroes than can Windsor; nor doth Fame’s
Immortal book record more noble names. 
Not to look back so far, to whom this isle
Owes the first glory of so brave a pile,
Whether to Caesar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish Knute,
(Though this of old no less contest did move
Than when for Homer’s birth seven cities strove) 70
(Like him in birth, thou shouldst be like in fame,