Samuel Taylor Coleridge

      This page is dedicated to
      Mr. Newcombe, my math
      teacher.

Selections taken from the superb edition
edited by I.A. Richards:

      THe Portable Coleridge

The Viking Press, New York, Terra, 1950

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 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 receive 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 circle round him thrice,
and close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed
and drunk the milk of Paradise.


Fragment

Seaward, white-gleaming thro' the busy scud
With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head
Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging
Edges the stiffer Breze, now, yielding, drifts,
Now floats upon the air, and sends from far
A wildly-wailing Note.


Epitaph

Stop, Christian passer-by!--Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle breast.  Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.

O, lift one thought of prayer for S. T. C.;
That he who many a year with toil of breath
found death in life, may here find life in death!

Mercy for praise -- to be forgiven for fame
he ask'd, and hoped, through Christ.
Do thou, the same!                9th Novemeber 1833


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