Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

This blog post will be about my readings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge who is known for writing The rime of the ancient mariner, but I found this poem to be much more interesting easier to grasp, probably because of its short nature and vivid imagination.
This poem was written while the author was enduced with opium soaked in alcohol, a remedy made to decrease pain, the pschological effects and the subquential dreams to follow are what inspires this poem and the reason it is not finished. The author says it should have been 300 lines, but someone interrupted him while he was writing it and he forgot the rest of what he was going to say!
The poem begins with:

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. (lines 1-5)

Which tells us we are reading about Kubla Khan the grandson of Ghangas Khan, who ruled 1/5 of the known world in his time. Kubla lived in what is today known as Mongolia and the rest of the poem describes the scenery and what goes on in it. Alph, the river, is measureless as well as the caves and sunless sea, which all give a vivid imagination of what the author is seeing in his dream.
It goes on to read:

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 (line 6-11)

This describes the river which stretches five miles and has a tower and walls surrounding it. This is in contrast to the "measureless" river and caves that it is made up of. Which shows me the author sees a man made entity, the walls as being an influence on the environment, but does not totally encompass it. It is mankind way of blocking themselves off from the unknown. He says there "were gardens" and "were forests ancient as the hills", which says the walls, in the process of man enforcing themselves with some security and shelter managed to destroy something ancient and important.

The next part, which is what made me decide to write about this poem, is moving and makes ourselves question the infinite's of nature and finite time which we are on this earth:

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: (line 17-22)

This part seems to tell of a fountain or geyser with force to contradict the surroundings, peaceful and tranquil; much like our own inhabitants of the Earth. This fountain goes on for a little while with "swift bursts" that add some kind of new aura to the surrounding area.

But as irony would have it, the poem goes on to say:

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: (lines 23-28)

The momentary flash of the fountain is stopped as sudden as it starts and though it started differently than all the other bits of water it had left behind, it has the same fate, to go through the "maze" of a river, through the "measureless" caves and then finally to the "lifeless" ocean. So no matter how much of an impact we make, we will still have the same fate as everyone else, to be lifeless, or death, as i interpret it.

The author goes on to write:

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! (lines 37-47)

This part seems to, for the first time, insert the author into the poem and as he hears the Abyssian maid and with "Her symphony and song" she gives him a "deep delight" that makes him happy and he is able to "build a that dome in air", her song let him create something, like she was his muse and with that gave him inspiration to create, just as the fountain sprang up and created a disturbance in the tranquil environment.
The end of the poem adds that anyone who heard her will see the same thing he has seen, "And all who heard should see them there, and all should cry, Beware! Beware!" So he is not the only one, he thinks, will see this place or hear this lady. I have read on Wikipedia.org that some will think the women to be the sun, the creator and nurturer of our Earth, and I agree. But she is not just singing to the author or to just us, but to the whole solar system, all that will hear (or feel) her.

My own experience with this poem is not the exact images or visuals that the author has seen and I have never dreamed about hearing the sun sing to me and let me create rivers and caves. But dreaming while on a drug or under the influence of something is an experience we (the author and I) share. My drug was not as intense and opium doused in alcohol, but I had my wisdom teeth taken out and I was on some strong pain relievers that put me to sleep almost as immediately as I took them. They gave me weird dreams that I would remember vividly after I woke up, but after a short time of being awake, with any of my dreams, I forget about them and even if I try, they go away forever. I think he would have written more about Kubla Khan and his land with "measureless" caves and man made walls, even more if we as not interrupted. And I may start doing that, keeping a writing pad next to my bed, so whenever I have an interesting dream, I could write down what it was and try and make sense of it later.