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.
Notes
In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in 'Purchas's Pilgrimage:' 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.' The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two or three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to the room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but alas! without the after restoration of the latter:
........................Then all the charm
Is broken -- all that phantom-world so fair,
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes--
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo! he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.
Yet from the still surviving recollections of his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. ...but the to-morrow is yet to come.
As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease.--1816.
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Comments
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Those persons from Porlock should have been shot!! A classic poem...
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This is a fascinating poem. I enjoyed studying this poem in school. I think after reading this poem the following article is a must read. http://www.sesk.org/Aesthetics/Literature/English/Romantics/Coleridge/KublaKhan.htm
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Amazing
One of the most incredible poems in he English language! Amazingly, exquisitely, ineffably beautiful! -
Two paws up
i enjoyed how well you worte this poem
the flow was beautiful and the way you descibed the sceneary is just so specticalar it was wonderful
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Amazing
Simply one of the most breathtaking poems in the English language! -
KUBLA KHAN is a pure imaginary story in the the form of poem.The deep romantic chasm down the slope of a gren hill covered with a cedar trees.It was portray as a holy and enchanted place haunted by a woman wailing for her demon lover.The fountain assumed as a sacred river Alpha.All these points makes us think that poet has a strong fancy.All these imaginary objects create horror,terror in the poem,one can find horror when kubla hears ancestral voices at a distance telling him that war is imminent.Coleridges supernaturalism is shown by the last line of poem:''HIS FLASHING EYES,HIS FLOATING HAIR''.Well this poem is romantic in nature.
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i don't think it did come from an opoium induced stae. its to perfect. i really like the contrasts i.e.
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
i believe this to be the pinnacle of coleridges writng, even dwarfing the rime of the ancient mariner -
doesnt this poem speak about his craving to be inspired to write a poem? i think the river he refers to is the way his stream of consciousness is moving from nothing to a poem. and the world he describes of could be his mind the way he sees it in his opium induced dream. i think the key to his unique imagery and fantastic story must be his desperate feelings to write, to produce. i think its the intensity of fast running thoughts, effect of opium, the dream he suddenly woke up from and the things in his real life that he wanted to escape from.
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Of course we also have to keep in mind that Coleridge admitted he was messed up on opium when writting this. This poem "came to him" in an opium indused sleep... (not that I'm saying that's a bad thing).
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Like nothing else ever written.
Where does the music lie? Some people thought that Coleridge was the most gifted at understanding sound of any poet. Here the poem is like the:
deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart
irregular rhyming, iambs of varying length, and absolutely jarring vividness contribute to sensory disorientation, but do so the way a great piece of music does, by putting us into a trance and then snapping us out from time to time to remind us that it, not we, are in control of the journey. THis poem understands the sonic order beneath the structural and imagistic chaos, and appeals to it so subtly, that the reader is hardly aware of the strangeness he or she is hearing. The poem also has some lovely asides that rather than distract from the flow, build a richer more complex pattern. Any one of the lines:
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
could be deleted from the text. THey are not necessary in terms of the literal meaning. The reader gets the point literally. However, the sounds are so balanced that to alter one syllable would make it an inferior. The music of the words snakes into the ear. It is the sound of passion.
It is like a tapestry that grows in different directions, but does not lose any of the integrity of the original design and is in fact better understood because of its complexity. The ending is like this, as is the following:
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 :
The poem is serpentine, meandering with a mazy motion just like the river. The text almost mimics the images of the river. The way he tosses in "measureless to man" is perfect, largely because it is unnecessary for us to see the picture, but it is necessary for the music of the poem.
It is also an extraordinarily patient poem. Coleridge is in no hurry, and the tension of the build-up is matched only by the extraordinariness of the conclusion.
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 !
He circuits around the words here, with odd and intense images and words, cedarn, savage. Most poets would have said was haunted by demons. Coleridge patiently takes it further. This place is exceeds all others where womom wails for her demon lover. That is pretty select company, and an intense metaphor to digest. But an easy one to read.
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This poem has always facinated me with a glow I could never quite put my finger on. Its a perfect example of the magic possible from great rhyming combined with powerful images. I really wish I could define where its music lies. Can anyone help?
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