Kubla Khan
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 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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