"Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment" is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which takes its title from the Mongol and Chinese emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty. Coleridge claimed he wrote the poem in the autumn of 1797 at a farmhouse near Exmoor, England, but it may have been composed on one of a number of other visits to the farm. It also may have been revised a number of times before it was first published in 1816.
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The poem's opening lines are often quoted, and it introduces the name Xanadu (or Shangdu, the summer palace of Kublai Khan):
- 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.
Coleridge claimed that the poem was inspired by an opium-induced dream (implicit in the poem's subtitle A Vision in a Dream) but that the composition was interrupted by a person from Porlock, and on his return to his room, found that he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast. A note on a manuscript by Coleridge explicitly states that he had taken opium at the time to combat dysentery. Some have speculated that the vivid imagery of the poem stems from a waking hallucination, most likely opium-induced. Additionally, a quotation from William Bartram[1] is believed to have been a source of the poem. There is widespread speculation on the poem's meaning, some suggesting the author is merely portraying his vision while others insist on a theme or purpose.
Inspiration for this poem also comes from Marco Polo's description of Shangdu and Kublai Khan from his book Il Milione, which was included in Samuel Purchas' Pilgrimage, Vol. XI, 231.
When he declared himself emperor, the historical Khan claimed he had the Mandate of Heaven, a traditional Chinese concept of rule by divine permission, and therefore gained absolute control over an entire nation. Between warring and distributing the wealth his grandfather Genghis Khan had won, Khan spent his summers in Xandu (better known now as Shangdu, or Xanadu) and had his subjects build him a home suitable for a son of God.
This story is described in the first two lines of the poem, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure-dome decree" (1-2). The end of the third paragraph gives us another close-up view of Kubla. At his home, Kubla had, on hand, some ten thousand horses, which he used as a means of displaying his power. Only he and those to whom he gave explicit permission (for committing miscellaneous acts of valor) were allowed to drink their milk. Hence the closing image of "the milk of Paradise". (54)
- For he on honey-dew hath fed,
- And drunk the milk of Paradise.
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| Kubla
Khan or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment. by |
"Kubla Khan", whose complete title is "Kubla Khan, or a Vision
in a Dream. A Fragment.", is a famous poem by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge which takes its title from the Mongol/Chinese emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty.
Coleridge claimed that it was written in the autumn of 1797 at a
farmhouse near Exmoor, but it may have been composed on one of a
number of other visits to the farm. It may also have been revised a
number of times before it was first published in 1816.
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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 !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were
breathing,
A mighty fountain[1] momently[2] 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.
... in front, just under my feet, was the enchanting and amazing crystal fountain which incessantly threw up from dark rocky caverns below, tons of water every minute, forming a basin, capacious enough for large shallops to ride in, and a creek of four or five feet depth of water and near twenty yards over, which meanders six miles through green meadows, ... directly opposite to the mouth or outlet of the creek, is a continual and amazing ebullition where the waters are thrown up in such abundance and amazing force, as to jet and swell up two or three feet above the common surface: white sand and small particles of shells are thrown up with the waters near to the top, ... The ebullition is astonishing and continual, though its greatest force of fury intermits, regularly, for the space of thiry seconds of time: ...
  | "Kubla Khan" and the Embodied Mind - PsyArt: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. |
| | Explicated for an undergraduate class - Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla Khan |
| | Kubla Khan Set To Music - Coleridge: KUBLA KHAN Or A Vision In A Dream - INTRODUCTION, ANALYSIS, MUSIC by JM Schroeder |
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