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.Five miles meandering with a mazy motionThrough 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 farAncestral voices prophesying war!The shadow of the dome of pleasureFloated midway on the waves;Where was heard the mingled measureFrom the fountain and the caves.It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!A damsel with a dulcimerIn a vision once I saw:It was an Abyssinian maid,And on her dulcimer she played,Singing of Mount Abora.Could I revive within meHer symphony and song,To such a deep delight 'twould win meThat 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.[1798]The Pains of SleepEre on my bed my limbs I lay,It hath not been my use to prayWith 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 imprestThat I am weak, yet not unblest,Since in me, round me, every whereEternal strength and wisdom are.But yester-night I prayed aloudIn anguish and in agony,Up-starting from the fiendish crowdOf shapes and thoughts that tortured me:A lurid light, a trampling throng,Sense of intolerable wrong,And whom I scorned, those only strong!Thirst of revenge, the powerless willStill baffled, and yet burning still!Desire with loathing strangely mixedOn wild or hateful objects fixed.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 suffered, or I did:For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,My own or others still the sameLife-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.So two nights passed: the night's dismaySaddened and stunned the coming day.Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to meDistemper's worst calamity.The third night, when my own loud screamHad 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 subduedMy anguish to a milder mood,Such punishments, I said, were dueTo natures deepliest stained with sin, –For aye entempesting anewThe unfathomable hell withinThe horror of their deeds to view,To know and loathe, yet wish and do!Such griefs with such men well agree,But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?To be beloved is all I need,And whom I love, I love indeed.[1803]Limbo'Tis a strange place, this Limbo! – not a Place,Yet name it so; – where Time and weary SpaceFettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing,Strive for their last crepuscular half-being; –Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny handsBarren and soundless as the measuring sands,Not mark'd by flit of Shades, – unmeaning theyAs moonlight on the dial of the day!But that is lovely – looks like human Time, –An old man with a steady look sublime,That stops his earthly task to watch the skies;But he is blind – a statue hath such eyes; –Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance,Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,With scant white hairs, with foretop bald and high,He gazes still, – his eyeless face all eye; –As 'twere an organ full of silent sight,His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light! –Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb –He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure,By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral
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