THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF S. T. COLERIDGE. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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      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 there 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!

       · · · · · · · 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!

      Such, in fact, was the dual capacity of Coleridge's mind,—such its ability to commingle the actual and the imaginary, that whilst he could at one moment paint the gentle English landscape in which he dwelt,—

      Low was our pretty Cot; our tallest Rose

       Peeped at the chamber-window. We could hear

       At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,

       The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air

       Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the Porch

       Thick Jasmins twin'd: the little landscape round,

       Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.

       It was a spot which you might aptly call

       The Valley of Seclusion!

      he was enabled to describe, with the verisimilitude of perfect memory, the dim sea-reaches where,—

      ... Now there came both mist and snow,

       And it grew wondrous cold:

       And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

       As green as emerald.

      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 noises in a swound!

      At length did cross an Albatross,—

       Through 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 flew.

       The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

       The helmsman steered us through!

      But now, while the sun poured down hotter and still hotter rays upon the unaccustomed back of Coleridge, he heard the hearty voice of Tom Poole, summoning him to the bark-built arbour under the big elm-trees. A jug of egg-flip and a delightful chat were awaiting him: the bees were humming round in the "lime-tree bower" of the garden: and the deep, vibrating voice of the poet, roused to unwonted exhilaration, was presently moved to declaim one of his own magnificent imitations from Schiller, The Visit of the Gods. His recitation rose like a chant in its music and sonority.

      Never, believe me,

       Appear the Immortals,

       Never alone:

       Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler,

       Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler;

       Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his Throne!

       They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!

       With Divinities fills my

       Terrestrial Hall!

      How shall I yield you

       Due entertainment,

       Celestial Quire?

       Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance

       Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance,

       That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!

       Ha! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul!

       O give me the Nectar!

       O fill me the Bowl!

      THE ALBATROSS BREAKS THE ICE-SPELL.

      "At length did cross an Albatross,—

       Through the fog it came;

       As if it had been a Christian soul,

       We hailed it in God's name."

       (The Ancient Mariner).

      "Indeed, one might easily forget all mundane matters upon a day like this," mused the poet as he became rested and refreshed. "It is not a day for doing, Poole,—for digging and forking and stooping,—it was meant for dreaming, for endless reveries of eternal beauty."

      "That is not likely ever to be my lot," said the matter-of-fact Poole, "Too much to see after."

      "It might be mine, perhaps, did I choose...." observed Coleridge, with the abstracted air of one talking in his sleep, "Have I ever told you, Poole, of the offer I have had from the Wedgwood brothers?"

      "The china-man's sons?" Poole queried.

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