 In
Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph1, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless
sea. 5
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills2
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the
hills, 10
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 3
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was
haunted 15
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 momently4 was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted
burst 20
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: 5
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy6
motion
25
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!
30
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves:
Where was heard the mingled measure7
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare
device, 35
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer8
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinia9 maid,
And on her dulcimer she
played, 40
Singing of Mount Abora.10
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 't would win me
That with music loud and
long, 45
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! 50
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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