Through caverns measureless to man

So twice five miles of fertile grounds

With walls and towers where girdled round:

and there where gardens bright with sinous rills,

where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

and there 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

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

Floaded 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.

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw: it was an Abyssinian maid,

and on her dulcimer she played,

singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

to such a deep delight ‘twould win me,

that with music loud and long,

that sunny dome! The caves of ice!

And all who heard should seethem there,

and all should cry , Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

and close your eyes with holy dread,

for he on honey-dew hath fed,

and drunk the milk of Paradise.