Kubla Khan*: or, a Vision in a Dream*

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

    Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

    Through caverns measureless to man

    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!

    A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

    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.

    O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!

    So haggard and so woebegone?

    The squirrel's granary is full,

    And the harvest's done.

    I see a lily on thy brow

    With anguish moist and fever dew,

    And on thy cheek a fading rose

    Fast withereth too.

    "I met a lady in the meads,

    Full beautiful -a faery's child,

    Her hair was long, her foot was light,

    And her eyes were wild.

    I made a garland for her head,

    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

    She looked at me as she did love,

    And made sweet moan.

    I set her on my pacing steed,

    And nothing else saw all day long,

    For sidelong would she bend, and sing

    A faery's song.

    She found me roots of relish sweet,

    And honey wild, and manna dew,

    And sure in language strange she said

    `I love thee true.'

    She took me to her elfin grot,

    And there she wept, and sighed full sore,

    And there I shut her wild wild eyes

    With kisses four.

    And there she lulled me asleep,

    And there I dreamed -Ah! woe betide!

    The latest dream I ever dreamed

    On the cold hill's side.

    I saw pale kings and princes too,

    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

    They cried -`La Belle Dame sans Merci

    Hath thee in thrall!'

    I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

    With horrid warning gaped wide,

    And I awoke and found me here,

    On the cold hill's side.

    And this is why I sojourn here,

    Alone and palely loitering,

    Though the sedge has withered from the lake,

    And no birds sing."

    Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

    Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,

    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

    Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

    Though winning near the goal -yet, do not grieve;

    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

    Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

    Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

    And, happy melodist, unwearied,

    For ever piping songs for ever new;

    More happy love! more happy, happy love!

    For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,

    For ever panting and for ever young;

    All breathing human passion far above,

    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,

    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

    Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

    Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

    What little town by river or sea-shore,

    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

    Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?

    And, little town, thy streets for evermore

    Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

    Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

    O Attic* shape! Fair attitude! with brede*

    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

    With forest branches and the trodden weed;

    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

    As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!

    When old age shall this generation waste,

    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,

    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

    O for a draught of vintage! that hath been

    Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,

    Tasting of Flora and the country-green,

    Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth.

    O for a beaker full of the warm South,

    Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

    And purple-stained mouth;

    That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

    And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

    Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

    What thou among the leaves hast never known,

    The weariness, the fever, and the fret

    Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

    Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,

    Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

    And leaden-eyed despairs;

    Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

    Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

    Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

    Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

    But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

    Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

    Already with thee! tender is the night,

    And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

    Clustered around by all her starry Fays;

    But here there is no light

    Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

    I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

    Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

    But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

    Wherewith the seasonable month endows

    The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

    Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;

    And mid-May's eldest child

    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

    Darkling I listen; and for many a time

    I have been half in love with easeful Death,

    Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

    To take into the air my quiet breath;

    Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

    In such an ecstasy!

    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -

    To thy high requiem become a sod.

    Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

    No hungry generations tread thee down;

    The voice I hear this passing night was heard

    In ancient days by emperor and clown:

    Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path

    Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

    The same that oft-times hath

    Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam

    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

    Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

    To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

    Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

    As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

    Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

    Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

    Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

    In the next valley-glades:

    Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

    Fled is that music: -do I wake or sleep?

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

    Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

    Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

    Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

    Steady thy laden head across a brook;

    Or, by a cyder-press, with patient look,

    Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-

    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

    Among the river sallows, borne aloft

    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

    Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

    Frost at Midnight

    The Frost performs its secret ministry,

    Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

    Came loud, -and hark, again! loud as before.

    The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

    Have left me to that solitude, which suits

    Abstruser musings: save that at my side

    My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

    'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

    And vexes meditation with its strange

    And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

    With all the numberless goings-on of life,

    Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame

    Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;

    Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

    Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

    Methinks its motion in this hush of nature

    Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,

    Making it a companionable form,

    Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit

    By its own moods interprets, every where

    Echo or mirror seeking of itself,

    And makes a toy of Thought.

    But O! how oft,

    How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

    Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,

    To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft

    With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt

    Of my sweet birthplace, and the old church-tower,

    Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang

    From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,

    So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

    With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear

    Most like articulate sounds of things to come!

    So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,

    Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

    And so I brooded all the following morn,

    Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye

    Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:

    Save if the door half opened, and I snatched

    A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,

    For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,

    Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

    My playmate when we both were clothed alike!

    Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

    Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

    Fill up the interspersed vacancies

    And momentary pauses of the thought!

    My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

    With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

    And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

    And in far other scenes! For I was reared

    In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim,

    And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

    But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

    By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

    Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

    Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

    And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

    The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

    Of that eternal language, which thy God

    Utters, who from eternity doth teach

    Himself in all, and all things in himself.

    Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

    Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

    Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

    Whether the summer clothe the general earth

    With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

    Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

    Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

    Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

    Heard only in the trances of the blast,

    Or if the secret ministry of frost

    Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

    Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.