Kubla Khan
by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
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In Xanadu did Kubla
Khan |
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A stately pleasure-dome decree : |
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Where Alph, the sacred river, ran |
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Through caverns measureless to man |
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Down to a sunless sea. |
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So twice five miles of fertile ground |
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With walls and towers were girdled round : |
| And there were gardens bright
with sinuous rills |
| Where blossomed many an
incense-bearing tree; |
| And here were forests ancient as
the hills, |
| Enfolding sunny spots of
greenery. |
| But O, that deep romantic chasm
which slanted |
| Down the green hill athwart a
cedarn cover! |
| A savage place! as holy and
enchanted |
| As e'er beneath a waning moon was
haunted |
| By woman wailing for her
demon-lover! |
| And from this chasm, with
ceaseless turmoil seething, |
| As if this earth in fast thick
pants were breathing, |
| A mighty fountain momently was
forced; |
| Amid whose swift half-intermitted
burst |
| Huge fragments vaulted like
rebounding hail, |
| Or chaffy grain beneath the
thresher's flail : |
| And 'mid these dancing rocks at
once and ever |
| It flung up momently the sacred
river. |
| Five miles meandering with a mazy
motion |
| Through wood and dale the sacred
river ran, |
| Then reached the caverns
measureless to man, |
| And sank in tumult to a lifeless
ocean : |
| And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard
from far |
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
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The shadow of the dome of pleasure |
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Floated midway on the waves; |
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Where was heard the mingled measure |
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From the fountain and the caves. |
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It was a miracle or rare devices, |
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
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A damsel with a dulcimer |
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In a vision once I saw : |
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It was an Abyssinian maid, |
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And on her dulcimer she played, |
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Singing of Mount Abora. |
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Could I revive within me, |
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Her symphony and song, |
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To such a deep delight 'twould win me, |
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That with music loud and long, |
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I would build that dome in air, |
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That sunny dome! those caves of ice! |
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And all who heard should see them there, |
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And all should cry, Beware! Beware! |
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His flashing eyes, his floating hair! |
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Weave a circle round him thrice, |
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And close your eyes with holy dread, |
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For he on honey-dew hath fed, |
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And drunk the milk of Paradise. |
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge
| Classic Poems |
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[ Kubla Khan ] [ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ] |
