Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/701

 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

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 reach J d 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 play'd,

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 hairl

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