Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

Surprisingly good

So there was this one time, at my EF class, we were studying about poems and old poems made by very inspiring people who, I must say, had this perception of the world in a very romantic way. Of course, I’m guessing that the term romantic is way too  vague since the very common interpretation of the word itself is the one we think we share with our loved ones. But Samuel Taylor Coleridge, perceived romance through Gothic mindset. Pretty confusing huh? Well later on I will post one of his poem and I’ll let you judge. Anyway, during this lesson we were made to participate to this game, of course, about poems too. So my teacher, Zoe, gave us a paper and on the top of this blank paper she wrote:

LAST NIGHT I DREAMED THAT

And each of us had to compose a line, just a line, to finally create the ensemble of this poem. The twist of the whole game is, we were not allowed to read what the person next to us had written. So after we wrote that line, we had to fold the part of the paper where we wrote our line at the back so that nobody could see until the last person in the class had written its own. I honestly thought, the whole thing was going to be a complete joke because it be a total nonsense right? But this is what resulted after…

LAST NIGHT I DREAMED THAT

The moon was excreting the sun’s sorrow

There’s an enormous wave coming towards me

But someday I will find my way back to where your name was written in the sand

When haze sings with the moonlight

The nightmare that shattered my soul

Then I met some creatures that gave me a treasure map

Look at the sky! I wonder if I can reach one star, just one

Trying to wake up, dark and horrible

I walk in a big field full of fairies

That’s the dream which make me blind

Not bad huh? Yea sounds pretty crazy, but trust me, this whole poem could’ve turned out a lot crazier than this. And this is pretty amazing actually.