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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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Sir William Jones et la représentation de l’Inde
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Sir William Jones et la représentation de l’Inde
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