to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall."* The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though 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, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind,

*The exact words are these:-"In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure."-PURCHAS his Pilgrimage: Lond. fol. 1626, Bk. 4. chap. 13, p. 418.—ED.

+ Purpose-1816.

the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. Αύριον* ἅδιον ἄσω : but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease.]

1816.

N Xanadu did Kubla Khan

IN

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 blossom'd 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 :

* Σαμερον 1816.

And here were, &c.-1816.

And folding-ib.

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'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 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.

THE PAINS OF SLEEP.

ERE on my bed my limbs I lay,

It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,

My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,

No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication;

A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

But yester-night I pray'd aloud
In anguish and in agony,

Up-starting from the fiendish crowd

Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:

* Drank-1816.

A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,

And whom I scorn'd, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still!
Desire with loathing strangely mix'd
On wild or hateful objects fix'd.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffer'd, or I did:
For all seem'd guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame!

So two nights pass'd: the night's dismay Sadden'd and stunn'd the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seem'd to me Distemper's worst calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child;

And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due

To natures deepliest stain'd with sin,—

For aye entempesting anew

The unfathomable hell within

The horror of their deeds to view,