To clear yon wood from thing unblest, Which when I saw and when I heard, "And in my dream methought I went Thus Bracy said: the Baron, the while, With arms more strong than harp or song, Thy sire and I will crush the snake!" And Geraldine, in maiden wise, A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy, And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, Each shrank up to a serpent's eye, And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, One moment—and the sight was fled ! At Christabel she looked askance ! But Christabel in dizzy trance The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone, So deeply had she drunken in That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, That look of dull and treacherous hate! And when the trance was o'er, the maid That thou this woman send away!' Why is thy cheek so wan and wild, Prayed that the babe for whom she died, Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride! That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled, Sir Leoline! And wouldst thou wrong thy only child, Her child and thine ? Within the Baron's heart and brain Dishonoured thus in his old age; To th' insulted daughter of his friend He rolled his eye with stern regard Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here? I bade thee hence!" The bard obeyed; And turning from his own sweet maid, The aged knight, Sir Leoline, Led forth the lady Geraldine! CONCLUSION TO PART II. A LITTLE child, a limber elf, That always finds, and never seeks, And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last With words of unmeant bitterness. Such giddiness of heart and brain KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM: A FRAGMENT. In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farmhouse between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmore confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effect 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 had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter : Then all the charm Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair 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 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. Aüptov ädiov äow; 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.-1816. IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan 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 here 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 A mighty fountain momently was forced : Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's 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 The shadow of the dome of pleasure sure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, I would build that dome in air, THE PAINS OF SLEEP. ERE on my bed my limbs I lay, But yester-night I prayed aloud me: A lurid light, a trampling throng, And whom I scorned, those only strong! A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! Still baffled, and yet burning still! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw : It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, Desire with loathing strangely mixed To such a deep delight 'twould win For all seemed guilt, remorse, or woe, me, That with music loud and long, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame. So two nights passed: the night's dis- And having thus by tears subdued may Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me, Distemper's worst calamity. My anguish to a milder mood, The third night, when my own loud The horror of their deeds to view scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child To know and loathe, yet wish and do! Such griefs with such men well agree, But wherefore, wherefore fall on me To be beloved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed. THE END. |