„In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man.
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 “(1-9)
This calming image from the first part suddenly becomes more extreme and it is disturbed in the second stanza. Dark and mystical images appear and change the mood of the poem completely regarding the first part. I think this happened because he suffered from opium crisis because he ran out of it suddenly. The woman wailing for her demon lover is basically opium smoking equipment wailing for the „goods“.
„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! “(12-16)
And it finally happened. He got his hands on drugs and he consumed it changing his physical state immediately where he refers probably to his metabolism mentioning the river again: „It flung up momently the sacred river. / Five miles meandering with a mazy motion / through wood and dale the sacred river ran...” (23-25)
When the drug related pleasure reached its highest point he saw his „pleasure dome“and it was made out of opium.
It was a miracle of rare device,
a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! (34-35)
Before he wrote his final lines Coleridge was interrupted by a mysterious character called Porlock. I am sure that he took another dose and continued to write normally.
In the final lines I think he glorifies the „opium dome“relating it to something beautiful such as a maid and her dulcimer which she played on.
„A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played“(36-39)
Finally he generally encourages that opium should be consumed as he refers to it calling it „the milk of paradise“and I have already explicated what I think this paradise actually was.
„And close your eyes with holy dread,
for he on honey-dew hath fed,
and drunk the milk of Paradise. “ (51-53)
The modern version of the last stanzas would probably go like this:
„..Relax and close your eyes,
And take what the „paradise „offers to you...“
The river that is constantly mentioned apart from my opinion that it was just opium oozing from the dome represents nature and its strength. Although Coleridge was hallucinating most of the time while writing, in the poem “To nature” he showed that humans are the ones that can affect their own destiny and nature as well. God created nature and gave it to the humans to take care of it and not to underestimate its power. Although the poem is not very long it shows Coleridge´s awareness of the gift humans received from God and the amount of respect they should provide to Mother Nature and Gods creations.
“So will I build my altar in the fields,
and the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! And thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice” (9-14)
“Kubla Khan” is a glorification of anodyne or opium that Coleridge was addicted to. He felt good consuming it and I think that he just wanted to „spread the word around“trough his poem so that others can try it. The greatest artistic creations were made by artists that were addicted to some kind of a vice. The world famous bands and their band members (e.g. Depeche Mode) had their episodes with drugs but I do not blame them because they gave us something that we will enjoy in for a long time. I think that Coleridge is an ancestor of rock stars and artistic works that are drugs associated especially because of the fantastic images which he used to describe his visions that can be felt rather than read because of their tone and vividness.
Works cited
Web pages:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” (ca. 1797-98, 1816), (May 25 2008)
Drummond, Chris.“ Association in "Kubla Khan"'93 (English 32, 1989), (May 25 2008)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “To nature” (1820, not published in his lifetime), (May 28 2008)