An Ongoing Exploration of West Texas Wickidity, and its horrid impact on a Girl Named Lulu
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Jackalope Conspiracy
Poem for Thursday: 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 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.
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)
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