Kubla Khan
by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
|
In Xanadu did Kubla
Khan |
A stately pleasure-dome decree : |
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran |
Through caverns measureless to man |
Down to a sunless sea. |
So twice five miles of fertile ground |
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!
|
The shadow of the dome of pleasure |
Floated midway on the waves; |
Where was heard the mingled measure |
From the fountain and the caves. |
It was a miracle or rare devices, |
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
|
A damsel with a dulcimer |
In a vision once I saw : |
It was an Abyssinian maid, |
And on her dulcimer she played, |
Singing of Mount Abora. |
Could I revive within me, |
Her symphony and song, |
To such a deep delight 'twould win me, |
That with music loud and long, |
I would build that dome in air, |
That sunny dome! those caves of ice! |
And all who heard should see them there, |
And all should cry, Beware! Beware! |
His flashing eyes, his floating hair! |
Weave a circle round him thrice, |
And close your eyes with holy dread, |
For he on honey-dew hath fed, |
And drunk the milk of Paradise. |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
| Classic Poems |
|
[ Kubla Khan ] [ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ] |