Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge

In Xanadu did Cubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Thro’ caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So thrice six miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were convulséd round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree,
And here were forests, ancient as the Hills
Enfolding sunny spots of Greenery.

But o! That deep romantic chasm, that slanted
Down the green Hill athwart a cedarn cover,
A savage place, as holy and inchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her Demon Lover!
From forth this chasm, into hideous turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forc’d,
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
Thro’ wood and dale the sacred River ran,
Then reach’d the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Cubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
   The shadow of the dome of Pleasure
   Floated midway on the Wave
   Where was heard the mingled Measure
   From the fountain and the Cave
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 play’d
Singing of Mount Amora.
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 in holy dread
For He on Honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.