POEMS OF COLERIDGE

KUBLA KHAN

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 blossom'd 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!

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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 reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

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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 damsel with a dulcimer

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A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

PART THE FIRST

An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gallants bid

den to a weddingfeast, and detaineth

one

I

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

II

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

III

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

The Wedding-Guest is spellbound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his

tale

IV

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years' child.
The Mariner hath his will.

V

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

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The Mariner tells

how the

ship sailed southward with a good

wind and

fair weather

till it

reached the

Line

VI

"The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

VII

"The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

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The ship drawn by

storm toward the south pole

The merry minstrelsy.

X

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

XI

"And now the Storm-Blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

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XII

"With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,

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And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

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XIII

The land of

ice, and of fearful

sounds,

where no

"And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

XIV

"And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

living thing Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken

was to be

The ice was all between.

XV

"The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

xvi

'At length did cross an Albatross:
Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

XVII

"It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

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