3-057-341 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Autograph manuscript of "Kubla Khan", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1797. 'In a Vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian Maid, And on her dulcimer she play'd, Singing of Mount Amara. 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 in holy Dread, For He on Honey-dew hath fed, And drank the Milk of Paradise. This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie, brought on by two grains of Opium, taken to check a dysentery, at a Farm House between Porlock and Linton, a quarter of a mile from Culbone Church, in the fall of the year, 1797. - S. T. Coleridge'. This version of Coleridge's poem differs in several respects from that published in 1816.