Nor Alfred's bounteous hand alone,
Oxford, thy rising temples own:
Soon many a man munificent,
The prince, the prelate, laurel-crown'd crowd,
Their ample bounty lent
To build the beauteous monument,
That Pallas vow'd.
And now she lifts her head sublime
Majestic in the moss of time;
Nor wants there Grecia's better part.
'Mid the proud piles of antient art,
Whose fretted spires, with ruder hand,
Wainfleet and Wickham bravely plann'd;
Nor decent Doric to dispense
New charms 'mid old magnificence;
And here and there soft Corinth weares
Her daedal coronet of leaves;
While, as with rival pride their towers invade the sky,
Radcliffe and Bodley seem to rye,
Which shall deserve the foremost place,
Or Gothic strength, or Attic grace.