Kubla Khan
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
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 oh! 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 of rare
device,
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.
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