KUBLA KHAN by S.T. COLERIDGE

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KUBLA KHAN

01     In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
02     A stately pleasure-dome decree:
03     Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
04     Through caverns measureless to man
05     Down to a sunless sea.

06     So twice five miles of fertile ground
07     With walls and towers were girdled round:
08     And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
09     Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
10     And here were forests ancient as the hills,
11     Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

12     But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
13     Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
14     A savage place! as holy and enchanted
15     As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
16     By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

17     And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
18     As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
19     A mighty fountain momently was forced:
20     Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
21     Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
22     Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
23     And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
24     It flung up momently the sacred river.

25     Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
26     Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
27     Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
28     And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
29     And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
30     Ancestral voices prophesying war!

31     The shadow of the dome of pleasure
32     Floated midway on the waves;
33     Where was heard the mingled measure
34     From the fountain and the caves.
35     It was a miracle of rare device,
36     A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

37     A damsel with a dulcimer
38     In a vision once I saw:
39     It was an Abyssinian maid,
40     And on her dulcimer she played,
41     Singing of Mount Abora.

42     Could I revive within me
43     Her symphony and song,
44     To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
45     That with music loud and long,
46     I would build that dome in air,
47     That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
48     And all who heard should see them there,
49     And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
50     His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
51     Weave a circle round him thrice,
52     And close your eyes with holy dread,
53     For he on honey-dew hath fed,
54     And drunk the milk of Paradise.

above sections match the sections proposed
in my analysis and do not correspond with the few ones
made in the original (cf. text in wikisource)