Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (178 page)

Kubla Khan

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

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.
  
5
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,
  
10
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
  
15
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
  
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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
  
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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!
  
30

 
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,
  
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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,
  
40
 
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,
  
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I would build that done 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!
  
50
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Youth and Age

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

VERSE, a breeze ‘mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee —
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
  
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
 
    
When I was young!
  
5
When I was young? — Ah, woful When!
Ah! for the change ‘twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands
  
10
How lightly then it flash’d along:
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
  
15
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in’t together.

 
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
  
20
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
     
Ere I was old!
Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here.
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
  
25
’Tis known that Thou and I were one,
I’ll think it but a fond conceit —
It cannot be, that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d: —
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
  
30
What strange disguise hast now put on
To make believe that Thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this alter’d size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,
  
35
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but Thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.

 
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
  
40
Where no hope is, life’s a warning
That only serves to make us grieve
     
When we are old:
 
— That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
  
45
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist,
Yet hath out-stay’d his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Love

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
 
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
  
5
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
 
Beside the ruin’d tower.

The moonshine stealing o’er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
  
10
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
 
My own dear Genevieve!

She lean’d against the arméd man,
The statue of the arméd knight;
She stood and listen’d to my lay,
  
15
 
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene’er I sing
 
The songs that make her grieve.
  
20

I play’d a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story —
An old rude song, that suited well
 
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen’d with a flitting blush,
  
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With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
 
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
  
30
And that for ten long years he woo’d
 
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another’s love
  
35
 
Interpreted my own.

She listen’d with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
 
Too fondly on her face!
  
40

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he cross’d the mountain-woods,
 
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
  
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And sometimes from the darksome shade
And sometimes starting up at once
 
In green and sunny glade

There came and look’d him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
  
50
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
 
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leap’d amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
  
55
 
The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasp’d his knees;
And how she tended him in vain;
And ever strove to expiate
 
The scorn that crazed his brain;
  
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And that she nursed him in a cave,
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
 
A dying man he lay;

 
— His dying words — but when I reach’d
  
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That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
 
Disturb’d her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill’d my guileless Genevieve;
  
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The music and the doleful tale,
 
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
  
75
 
Subdued and cherish’d long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blush’d with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
 
I heard her breathe my name.
  
80

Her bosom heaved — she stepp’d aside,
As conscious of my look she stept —
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
 
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
  
85
She press’d me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look’d up,
 
And gazed upon my face.

’Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly ’twas a bashful art
  
90
That I might rather feel, than see,
 
The swelling of her heart.

I calm’d her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
  
95
 
My bright and beauteous Bride.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Hymn Before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his deep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
  
5
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
  
10
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
  
15
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

 
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,
Yea, with my Life and Life’s own secret joy:
  
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Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing — there
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven.

 
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
  
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Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.

 
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
  
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And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth’s rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
  
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Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?
Who fill’d thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

 
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
  
40
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
  
45
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

 
Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain —
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Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
  
55
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? —
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
  
60
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

 
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest!
  
65
Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

 
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
  
70
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast —
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
  
75
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me — Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
  
80
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
  
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List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order