And haply, then, with sudden swell, Shall roar the distant curfew bell, While in the castle's mouldering tower The hooting owl is heard to pour Her melancholy song, and scare Dull silence brooding in the air. Then, hermit, let us turn our feet To the lone Abbey's still retreat, Embowered in the distant glen, Far from the busy haunts of men, Where, as we sit upon the tomb, The glow-worm's light may gild the gloom, And show to Fancy's saddest eye Where some lost hero's ashes lie. And oh, as through the mouldering arch, With ivy filled and weeping larch, The night-gale whispers sadly clear, Speaking dear things to fancy's ear, We'll hold communion with the shade Of some deep-wailing ruined maid— Or call the ghost of Spenser down, To tell of woe and fortune's frown; And bid us cast the eye of hope, Beyond this bad world's narrow scope.
Or if these joys to us denied,
To linger by the forest's side, Or in the meadow or the wood,
Or by the lone romantic flood, Let us in the busy town,
When sleep's dull streams the people drown,
Far from drowsy pillows flee,
And turn the church's massy key;
Then, as through the painted glass
The moon's pale beams obscurely pass,
And darkly on the trophied wall
Her faint ambiguous shadows fall,
Let us, while the faint winds wail Through the long reluctant aisle, As we pace with reverence meet, Count the echoings of our feet,
While from the tombs, with confessed breath, Distinct responds the voice of death.
If thou, mild Sage, wilt condescend Thus on my footsteps to attend, To thee my lonely lamp shall burn By fallen Genius' sainted urn! As o'er the scroll of Time I pore, And sagely spell of ancient lore, Till I can rightly guess of all That Plato could to memory call; And scan the formless views of things; Or, with old Egypt's fettered kings, Arrange the mystic trains that shine In night's high philosophic mine; And to thy name shall e'er belong The honours of undying song.
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.
THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace,- Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse; Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."
The mountains look on Marathon- And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sat on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships by thousands lay below,
And men in nations;-all were his! He counted them at break of day- And when the sun set, where were they?
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