Beat its straight path along the dusky air

Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing

(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)

Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory,

While thou stood'st gazing; or when all

was still,

Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm

For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom

No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. 1797. 1800.

KUBLA KHAN

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 Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects 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 awaking 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 has been cast, but, alas without the after restoration of the latter. Then all the charm Is broke-all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile, 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

The pool becomes a mirror.

(From The Picture; or, the Lover's Resolution)

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. Avpiov ädiov dow, but the to-morrow is yet to come. (Coleridge's note, 1816.)

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 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 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!

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

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.”

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.
"Held off! unhand me, gray-beard
loon!"

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

8 He holds him with his glittering eyeThe Wedding-Guest stood still,

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

third stanza, for instance, the original text has the two following:

But still he holds the wedding-guest-
"There was a Ship," quoth he-
"Nay, if thou'st got a laughsome tale,
Marinere come with me.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
Quoth he, "There was a Ship-"
"Now get thee hence, thou gray-beard Loon!
Or my Staff shall make thee skip."

For a full study of the different texts, see Prof. F. H. Sykes' Select Poems of Coleridge and Wordsworth, edited from Authors' Editions, Toronto, 1899. On the origin of the poem, see Biographia Literaria, Chap XIV, and Words worth's account of it, quoted and discussed in H. D. Traill's Life of Coleridge, pp. 47-50. 1 In the editions of 1798 and 1800 only.

? An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth one. [This and the following notes, except those in brackets, are Coleridge's running Summary of the story, first printed in Sybilline Leaves, 1817.] The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like voices in a swound!

1 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,

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it few.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

2 And a good south wind sprung up be hind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
While all the night, through fog-smoke
white,

Glimmered the white moon-shine."

8 God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee

thus!-

Why look'st thou so?"-" With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.

PART II

"The Sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew be hind,

But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo!

Till a great sea bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.

And I had done an hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird,
That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

2 Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist.

Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist.

3 The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

4 Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

5 Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

1 His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner, for killing the bird of good luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.
And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

1 And some in dreams assured were Of the Spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

2 Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

PART HI

"There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parched, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye!-

3 When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

4 With throats unslaked, with black lips

baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we
stood!

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

Agape they heard me call:

1 A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither de parted souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Con stantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.

2 The shipmates, in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead sea. bird round his neck.

3 The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.