POEM OF THE DAY

Another flight of fancy from an older contemporary of

Shelley (see yesterday’s choice). Samuel Taylor Coleridge blamed the unfinished nature of his poem on being interrupted by a visitor – a person from Porlock.

EXTRACTS FROM KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunlit 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 incensebearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding many 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!. .

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, o 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 shall 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.”

And an irreverent PS:

That much-maligned person from Porlock

Was neither a witch nor a warlock. ’Twas just bad social timing

Woke Sam from his rhyming, However he tugged at his forelock.