Poet's Corner

"Kubla Khan"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poem explanation

1	In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
	A stately pleasure-dome decree:
	Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
	Through caverns measureless to man

5	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;

10	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

15	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;

20	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.

25	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

30	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.

35	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,

40	And on her dulcimer she play'd,
	Singing of Mount Abora.
	Could I revive within me
	Her symphony and song,
	To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

45	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!

50	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.

Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.