CRATER
Kubla KhanOr, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
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!
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
Floated 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,
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 with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
|
 it is at 35 Lime Street, Nether Stowey, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA5 1NQ It was while he was living in Nether Stowey that Coleridge wrote This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, part of Christabel, and Frost at Midnight.[4] While writing Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment, Coleridge was said to have been interrupted by the arrival of a "Person from Porlock". It is unclear whether this really happened or was part of a dream but has become a literary allusion for unwanted intruders who disrupt inspired creativity. Wikipedia HERE |
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
||||
Lyrical Ballads
From Wikipedia,
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the EnglishRomantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature andpoetry.
Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written
by Wordsworth, with Coleridge contributing only five
poems to the collection, including one of his most
famous works, "The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Wordsworth and Coleridge set out to overturn what they considered the priggish, learned and highly sculpted forms of 18th century English poetry and bring poetry within the reach of the average person by writing the verses using normal, everyday language. They place an emphasis on the vitality of the living voice that the poor use to express their reality. Using this language also helps assert the universality of human emotions. Even the title of the collection recalls rustic forms of art – the word "lyrical" links the poems with the ancient rustic bards and lends an air of spontaneity, while "ballads" are an oral mode of storytelling used by the common people. wikipedia HERE |
|
His friend,Coleridge ,
who had also renounced his
In 1798 they published the book ,Lyrical Ballads which achieved a revolution in literary taste and sensibility.
Lyrical
Ballads;included
Wordsworth's Tintern
Abbey and Coleridge's famous poems, the Ancient
Mariner and The
Nightingale .
|
set up home at Alfoxden in Somerset with
his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth.
