1795 portrait of Coleridge by Peter Vandyke. To be honest, it looks like he took some opium before this too

(6) SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE –

KUBLA KHAN (1816)

“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.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge – opium dope fiend, who attributed his best poem “Kubla Khan” as a “A Vision in a Dream. Or, a Fragment” and prefaced it to be part of a much longer epic poem upon waking from a literal opium dream, only to be sadly interrupted in writing it by “a person on business from Porlock”. Yeah sure, Coleridge – we know you just ran out of poem.

“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 celebration of creative energy and the poet as shamanic figure. 1980s band Frankie Goes to Hollywood characteristically adapted it into a celebration of roving male (homo)sexual energy in their “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” – “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a pleasure-dome e-RECT!”. But there’s nothing like that in the original, is there?…

“And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced”

Oh my! Welcome to the Pleasuredome!

As for the poet as shamanic figure –

“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”.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)