Kubla Khan - a Poem
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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One of my 5 most favourite poems. Enjoy, the imagery is magnificent.
Interesting
Yep.
Indeed!!!
I like that poem
After I left high school I enrolled in "adult" classes, including English. This was in our poetry syllabus, I particularly enjoyed this poem, it has a "something" that appealed to me !!
It's kind of a magical poem, but then as I've since discovered, it's about a magical land.
You made me curious-- so I googled it:
Apologies for the poor formatting I had a little trouble getting it right.
Here's more from another source (Brittanica):
Xanadu , place in the opium-induced vision that English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge recorded in the poetic fragment “ Kubla Khan” (1798).
Coleridge’s fantasyland was based on Shangdu (“Upper Capital”), near present-day Duolun in Inner Mongolia, to which the real Kublai Khan moved the seat of Mongol government in the early 1260s.
Coleridge’s name Xanadu persisted in common usage. In Orson Welles’s film Citizen Kane (1941), it is the name given to the palatial estate of Charles Foster Kane, the film’s protagonist.
Since then the name has been used in many contexts—including songs, a musical, a ballet, and a film—to suggest the idyllic, the luxurious, and the exotic.
#Xanadu #KublaKhan #SamuelTaylorColeridge #CitizenKane #Opium # InnerMongolia
No apology necessary, I didn't notice anything wrong.
That image looks right for Inner Mongolia, known for its grasslands.