Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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 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 !
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 revive 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 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.
Xanadu
An idyllic, beautiful place
Kubla Khan
Decree
An authoritative order having the force of law
Caverns
A large cave
Girdled
Something that encircles like a belt
Sinuous
Characterized by many curves or turns; winding
Rills
A small brook; a rivulet.
Chasm
A deep, steep-sided opening in the earth's surface; an abyss or a gorge.f1 ²
Athwart
From side to side; crosswise or transversely
Cedarn
Waning
To decrease gradually in size, amount, intensity, or degree; decline
Seething
To churn and foam as if boiling
Fragments
A small part broken off or detached.f12 m
Vaulted
To jump or leap over, especially with the aid of a support such as the hands or a
pole. such as
Rebounding To spring or bounce back after hitting or colliding with something.v.
Chaffy
The dry bracts enclosing mature grains of wheat and some other cereal grasses,
removed during threshing
Thresher's
To beat the stems and husks of (grain or cereal plants) with a machine or flail to
separate the grains or seeds from the straw.thresh
Flail
A manual threshing device consisting of a long wooden handle or staff and a
shorter, free-swinging stick attached to its end.and a shorter, free-swinging stick attached to its
end.
v.
Mazy
Resembling a maze, as in design or complexity; labyrinthine28;;
Caverns
Tumult
A disorderly commotion or disturbancepar
Ancestral
Of, relating to, or evolved from an ancestor or ancestorsue255 ;
Damsel
A young woman or girl; a maiden
Dulcimer
An instrument with wire strings of graduated lengths stretched over a sound box,
played by striking with two padded hammers or by plucking
Abyssinian
E·thi·o·pi·a Formerly Ab·ys·sin·i·a (²b"¹-s¹n"¶-…)
Abbr. Eth.
1. A country of northeast Africa. An ancient kingdom converted to Christianity in
the 4th century A.D., the area was in turmoil after the rise of Islam in the 7th century and later
(17th-18th century) was beset by ruinous civil wars. It became independent in 1896 but was held
by Italy from 1935 to 1941. Addis Ababa is the capital and the largest city. Population,
32,775,000.he Œ?³'³A.D., the area was in turmoil after the rise of Islam in the 7th century and
later (17th-18th century) was beset by ruinous civil wars. It became independent in 1896 but was
held by Italy from 1935 to 1941. Addis Ababa is the capital and the largest city. Populati
Dread
To be in terror of·ed
Coleridge's note, published with the poem
The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity
[Lord Byron], and, as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological
curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits.
In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house
between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In
consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which
he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of
the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: ``Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be
built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a
wall.'' The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external
senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed
less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all
the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent
expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to
himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly
and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately
called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his
return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained
some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of
some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the
surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the
latter!
Then all the charm
Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes-The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.
Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to
finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. : but the to-morrow is yet to
come.
As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing
with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease.
"Kubla Khan"
Summary
The speaker describes the "stately pleasure-dome" built in Xanadu according to the decree of
Kubla Khan, in the place where Alph, the sacred river, ran "through caverns measureless to man
/ Down to a sunless sea." Walls and towers were raised around "twice five miles of fertile
ground," filled with beautiful gardens and forests. A "deep romantic chasm" slanted down a
green hill, occasionally spewing forth a violent and powerful burst of water, so great that it flung
boulders up with it "like rebounding hail." The river ran five miles through the woods, finally
sinking "in tumult to a lifeless ocean." Amid that tumult, in the place "as holy and enchanted / As
e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted / By woman wailing to her demon-lover," Kubla heard
"ancestral voices" bringing prophesies of war. The pleasure-dome's shadow floated on the waves,
where the mingled sounds of the fountain and the caves could be heard. "It was a miracle of rare
device," the speaker says, "A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!"
The speaker says that he once saw a "damsel with a dulcimer," an Abyssinian maid who played
her dulcimer and sang "of Mount Abora." He says that if he could revive "her symphony and
song" within him, he would rebuild the pleasure-dome out of music, and all who heard him
would cry "Beware!" of "His flashing eyes, his floating hair!" The hearers would circle him
thrice and close their eyes with "holy dread," knowing that he had tasted honeydew, "and drunk
the milk of Paradise."
Form
The chant-like, musical incantations of "Kubla Khan" result from Coleridge's masterful use of
iambic tetrameter and alternating rhyme schemes. The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a
rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between staggered rhymes and couplets. The
second stanza expands into tetrameter and follows roughly the same rhyming pattern, also
expanded-- ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJJ. The third stanza tightens into tetrameter and rhymes
ABABCC. The fourth stanza continues the tetrameter of the third and rhymes
ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG.
Commentary
Along with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan" is one of Coleridge's most
famous and enduring poems. The story of its composition is also one of the most famous in the
history of English poetry. As the poet explains in the short preface to this poem, he had fallen
asleep after taking "an anodyne" prescribed "in consequence of a slight disposition" (this is a
euphemism for opium, to which Coleridge was known to be addicted). Before falling asleep, he
had been reading a story in which Kubla Khan commanded the building of a new palace;
Coleridge claims that while he slept, he had a fantastic vision and composed simultaneously-while sleeping--some two or three hundred lines of poetry, "if that indeed can be called
composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of
the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or conscious effort."
Waking after about three hours, the poet seized a pen and began writing furiously; however, after
copying down the first three stanzas of his dreamt poem--the first three stanzas of the current
poem as we know it--he was interrupted by a "person on business from Porlock," who detained
him for an hour. After this interruption, he was unable to recall the rest of the vision or the poetry
he had composed in his opium dream. It is thought that the final stanza of the poem, thematizing
the idea of the lost vision through the figure of the "damsel with a dulcimer" and the milk of
Paradise, was written post-interruption. The mysterious person from Porlock is one of the most
notorious and enigmatic figures in Coleridge's biography; no one knows who he was or why he
disturbed the poet or what he wanted or, indeed, whether any of Coleridge's story is actually true.
But the person from Porlock has become a metaphor for the malicious interruptions the world
throws in the way of inspiration and genius, and "Kubla Khan," strange and ambiguous as it is,
has become what is perhaps the definitive statement on the obstruction and thwarting of the
visionary genius.
Regrettably, the story of the poem's composition, while thematically rich in and of itself, often
overshadows the poem proper, which is one of Coleridge's most haunting and beautiful. The first
three stanzas are products of pure imagination: The pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan is not a useful
metaphor for anything in particular (though in the context of the poem's history, it becomes a
metaphor for the unbuilt monument of imagination); however, it is a fantastically prodigious
descriptive act. The poem becomes especially evocative when, after the second stanza, the meter
suddenly tightens; the resulting lines are terse and solid, almost beating out the sound of the war
drums ("The shadow of the dome of pleasure / Floated midway on the waves...").
The fourth stanza states the theme of the poem as a whole (though "Kubla Khan" is almost
impossible to consider as a unified whole, as its parts are so sharply divided). The speaker says
that he once had a vision of the damsel singing of Mount Abora; this vision becomes a metaphor
for Coleridge's vision of the 300-hundred-line masterpiece he never completed. The speaker
insists that if he could only "revive" within him "her symphony and song," he would recreate the
pleasure-dome out of music and words, and take on the persona of the magician or visionary. His
hearers would recognize the dangerous power of the vision, which would manifest itself in his
"flashing eyes" and "floating hair." But, awestruck, they would nonetheless dutifully take part in
the ritual, recognizing that "he on honey-dew hath fed, / And drunk the milk of Paradise."