KUBLA KHAN
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.*
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 incence-bearing tree ;
And here were forests acnient 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
domon-lover !
And from this chasm, with
ceeaseless turmoil seething,
A mighty fountain momently
was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intrmitted
burst
Huge Gragments vaulted
like rebounding haik,
Or chaffy grain benieat
the trhesher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing
roks 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
meaningless to man,
And sank in tumult to a
lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla
heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying
war !
