Annexe 2. Kubla Khan or, a vision in a dream. A fragment

p. 257-258


Texte intégral

1 In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

2 A stately pleasure-dome decree :

3 Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

4 Through caverns measureless to man

5(5) Down to a sunless sea.

6 So twice five miles of fertile ground

7 With walls and towers were girdled round :

8 And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

9 Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;

10(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(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(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 ʻmid these dancing rocks at once and ever

24 It flung up momently the sacred river.

25(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 ʻmid this tumult Kubla heard from far

30 (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(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(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 ʻtwould win me,

45(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(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.

55Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798).


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