![\"Kubla](\"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/72-Haunted-House-Writing-Prompts-1.webp\")
<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nIn Xanadu did Kubla Khan
\nA stately pleasure-dome decree:
\nWhere Alph, the sacred river, ran
\nThrough caverns measureless to man
\nDown to a sunless sea.<\/p>\n
So twice five miles of fertile ground
\nWith walls and towers were girdled round:
\nAnd there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
\nWhere blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
\nAnd here were forests ancient as the hills,<\/p>\n
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
\nBut oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
\nDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
\nA savage place! as holy and enchanted
\nAs e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted<\/p>\n
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
\nAnd from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
\nAs if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
\nA mighty fountain momently was forced:
\nAmid whose swift half-intermitted burst<\/p>\n
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
\nOr chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
\nAnd ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
\nIt flung up momently the sacred river.
\nFive miles meandering with a mazy motion<\/p>\n
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
\nThen reached the caverns measureless to man,
\nAnd sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
\nAnd ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
\nAncestral voices prophesying war!<\/p>\n
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
\nFloated midway on the waves;
\nWhere was heard the mingled measure
\nFrom the fountain and the caves.
\nIt was a miracle of rare device,<\/p>\n
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
\nA damsel with a dulcimer
\nIn a vision once I saw:
\nIt was an Abyssinian maid,
\nAnd on her dulcimer she played,<\/p>\n
Singing of Mount Abora.
\nCould I revive within me
\nHer symphony and song,
\nTo such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
\nThat with music loud and long,<\/p>\n
I would build that dome in air,
\nThat sunny dome! those caves of ice!
\nAnd all who heard should see them there,
\nAnd all should cry, Beware! Beware!
\nHis flashing eyes, his floating hair!<\/p>\n
Weave a circle round him thrice,
\nAnd close your eyes with holy dread,
\nFor he on honey-dew hath fed,
\nAnd drunk the milk of Paradise.<\/p>\n
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was a major English Romantic poet, literary critic, and philosopher. Along with William Wordsworth, he helped launch the Romantic Movement in England with their joint publication “Lyrical Ballads” (1798). He is best known for his poems “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan,” the latter supposedly written after an opium-induced dream.<\/p>\n
Born in Devonshire, Coleridge was a precocious child who read voraciously. He attended Christ’s Hospital school in London and later Cambridge University, though he never completed his degree. Throughout his life, he struggled with opium addiction, chronic health problems, and personal debts.<\/p>\n
Despite these challenges, he produced influential works of literary criticism and philosophy, including “Biographia Literaria.” His concept of “willing suspension of disbelief” remains fundamental to literary theory. He also made significant contributions to criticism of Shakespeare and introduced German idealist philosophy to English audiences.<\/p>\n
Coleridge died in Highgate, London, having spent his final years under the care of Dr. James Gillman, who helped him manage his opium dependency. His influence on English literature and thought extends well beyond his own era, impacting writers and thinkers through the present day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A hallucinatory vision of paradise and poetic creation, where Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome becomes a symbol for the power and impermanence of artistic inspiration, blending exotic imagery <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[414,765],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classic-poems","category-samuel-taylor-coleridge"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}