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was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour; and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast; but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter."

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The veracity of this statement has been called in question ; by what right of superior knowledge to the poet's own, we cannot say. For our parts, we devoutly believe it. We know very little of opium; but perhaps every writer of verse has experienced what it is to pour forth poetry in dreams, though he may have been as unable to call his production to mind, as Scarlatti was his famous "Devil's Sonata. Coleridge, by some process perhaps of the mysterious herb which had set him to sleep, had the ability given him; perhaps he had not been asleep at all in the ordinary sense of the word, but in some state of what is called coma vigil. At all events, the poem, exquisite as it is, is no finer than he could have written awake; and what he could have written awake, he might have conceived asleep, especially under the preternatural kind of excitement to which opiates give rise.

The following is Marco Polo's account of the structure alluded to. We give it, however, not from Harris, but from the later and better pages of Mr. Murray, who published not long ago the completest version of the travels of Marco Polo. The "Shandu" of Mr. Murray is the "Xanadu" of Coleridge.

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KUBLA KHAN'S PALACE AT XANADU.

At Shandu in Tartary, near the western frontier of China, he has built a very large palace of marble and other valuable stones. The halls are gilded all over, and wonderfully beautiful, and a space sixteen miles in circuit is surrounded by a wall within which are fountains, rivers, and meadows. He finds stags, deer, and wild-goats, to give for food to the falcons and ger-falcons, which he keeps in cages, and goes out once a week to sport with them. Frequently he rides through that enclosure, having a leopard on the crupper of his horse, which, whenever he is inclined, he lets go, and it catches a stag, deer, or wild-goat, which is given to the ger-falcons in the cage. In this park, too,

the monarch has a large palace framed of cane, in interior gilded all over, having pictures of beasts and birds most skilfully worked on it. The roof is of the same material, and so richly varnished that no water can penetrate. I assure you that these canes are more than three palms thick, and from ten to fifteen paces long. They are cut length ways, from one knot to the other, and then arranged so as to form the roof. The whole structure is so disposed that the Khan, when he pleases, can order it to be taken down, for it is supported by more than two hundred cords of silk. His majesty remains there three months of the year, June, July, and August, the situation being cool and agreeable; and during this period his palace of cane is set up, while all the rest of the year it is down. On the 28th of August, he departs thence, and for the following purpose:—there are a race of mares white as snow, with no mixture of any other colour, and in number 10,000, whose milk must not be drunk by any one who is not of imperial lineage. Only one other race of men can drink it, called Boriat, because they gained a victory for Gengis Khan. When one of these white animals is passing, the Tartars pay respect to it as a great lord, standing by to make for it.

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Now for the architecture and landscape gardening of the poet :

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 girded round:

And here 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 or 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 play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 't would 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 lips with holy dread,
For he on honey dew hath fed,
And drank the milk of Paradise.

Neither Marco Polo, nor Rubruquis, no, nor Raleigh himself, nor any traveller that existed, ever saw a vision like that!

But we must hasten out of its divine company. Marco resumes with an account of

KUBLA KHAN'S PERSON AND STATE.

The Great Khan, lord of lords, named Kublai, is of a fine middle size, neither too tall nor too short; he has a beautiful fresh complexion, and well-proportioned limbs. His colour is fair and vermeil like the rose, his eyes dark and fine, his nose well formed and placed. He has four ladies, who always rank as his wives; and the eldest son, born to him by one of them, succeeds as the rightful heir of the

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