re: our favourite poems: kubla khan

(= a response to Judelicious' "challenge":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeOiNtCuI1I

hope you could enjoy it! I really like the flow of the language and the power of the pictures! Apologies that my reading isn't that good, but here's the text:

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 spot 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 cahsm, 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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798

Category:

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Tags:

• poem
• poetry
• fun
• haiku
• sonnet
• coleridge
• romantic
• shakespear

[MariMari404]

This helped me learn to recite the poem for my class. Thanks so much!

[BourneInDenver]

You have no class

[keef1957]

total bollocks!

[andymencil]

Hey dickhead, your comments are dumb. You should call yourself dumb in denver.

[BourneInDenver]

Bravo Sir

[yellowtootha]

Gosh! The poem can be read from your eyes! Good reading! Thank you

[elvissweet]

Coleridge was taking Laudanum while he wrote this, he never finished the last verse because he was interrupted by a visitor! Interesting eh?

[angelstrange]

lovely voice, lovely poem:) thank you for this.

[rensicle]

this is beautiful... thank you so much

[Tapepsi]

Good job on the poem. I have to read this in front of my English class, and now that I know how to read it so that it flows, it will make it a lot easier. Thank you.