mountain or descending cloud.
Paul's, the late theme of such a muse, whose flight
Has bravely reached and soared above thy height,
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire;
Secure, while thee the best of poets sings,
Preserved from ruin by the best of kings."

Byron, in the Tenth Canto of "Don Juan," treats St. Paul's
contemptuously--sneering, as was his affectation, at everything, human
or divine:--

"A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dim cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head--and there is London Town!"

Among other English poets who have sung of St. Paul's, we must not
forget Tom Hood, with his delightfully absurd ode, written on the cross,
and full of most wise folly:--

"The man that pays his pence and goes
Up to thy lofty cross, St. Paul's,
Looks over London's naked nose,
Women and men;
The world is all beneath his ken;
He sits above the ball,
He seems on Mount Olympus' top,
Among the gods, by Jupiter! and lets drop
His eyes from the empyreal clouds
On mortal crowds.

"Seen from these skies,
How small those emmets in our eyes!
Some carry little sticks, and one
His eggs, to warm them in the sun;
Dear, what a hustle
And bustle!
And there's my aunt! I know her by her waist,
So long and thin,
And so pinch'd in,
Just in the pismire taste.

"Oh, what are men! Beings so small
That, should I fall,
Upon their little heads, I must
Crush them by hundreds into dust.

"And what is life and all its ages!
There's seven stages!
Turnham Green! Chelsea! Putney! Fulham!
Brentford and Kew!
And Tooting, too!
And, oh, what very little nags to pull 'em!
Yet each would seem a horse indeed,
If here at Paul's tip-top we'd got 'em!
Although, like Cinderella's breed,
They're mice at bottom.
Then let me not despise a horse,
Though he looks small from Paul's high cross;
Since he would be, as near the sky,
Fourteen hands high.

"What is this w