Kubla Khan
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.
1797 - 1798
published 1816