Far Off: Xanadu

I have scarcely seen a place
More lovely and full of grace
(More full of darkest dreams,
Overriden by opium gleams)
Then what I see in Coleridge's face

In the soft words of "Kubla Khan."
There loveliness herself has drawn
About her a cloak of argent,
And wherever the poet went
In that poem, she has spread her lawn.

From the music of the melody
To the words themselves, I see
Something wondrous and radiant,
Something that makes magnificent
My vision, until it goes roaming free,

And flies on dragon wings to Xanadu.
There it lies murmuring the true
Story of the Khan and his creation
Until I give in to temptation,
And let myself be lured there too.

I can hear the murmur of Alph's waters,
With the singing Abyssinan daughters
Standing so close beside them.
I will find, where'er they hide them,
The secrets of the alien slaughters

They must have wreaked in the world
To draw beauty in, enchained, impearled,
And bind her here, to a river, one
That shines like all rivers in the sun.
There float flowers whose leaves, curled,

Would be taken for emeralds by us.
I hear the singing, sweet and joyous,
Swell all around me, and slay like frost
My reluctance; I am lost,
And I forget Kubla Khan's injustice.

I see instead the crystalline gleam
Of Alph's waters as they dream
Of the sea below and heaven above,
Of water's immortal form and love
For itself, from drop to stream,

From brook in highest mountains born,
To tributary singing forlorn,
To wide and lazy river in lowlands,
To raging water that commands,
To rain that falls upon the corn,

To lake lying far out of the tune,
To water sparkling in bright lagoon,
To well plunged deep into the soil,
To reservoir caught by dam and foiled,
To the ocean that shines with moon.

Alph, too, goes flowing to the sea;
But with a calm and dignified majesty
That somehow manages to deliver
The sense of Alph as a living river,
One that will not chatter, nor hurry.

Instead, as I have said before,
It sings on its way to the sunless shore.
It sings a grand and terrible measure;
It sings for all of Kubla Khan's pleasure.
And its song goes unrecorded once more,

Because my vision flits away from me,
And suddenly beneath the sunless sea
I am plunged, in waters born of night,
Cradled without tale nor hope of light,
Cradled, and taken, and made unfree

Deep in the waters where Alph comes,
Comes, and loses all sound of drums.
The sound of the sea is no sound at all;
Cold silence is its deadly call.
Silence like blood in my veins thrums.

And then, jumping as Coleridge did,
I move from that sea from sun hid
Into the gardens of Xanadu.
Here every daydream comes true,
Every fancy that wanders unbid

Through the tameless mind of man.
Here Kubla Khan the man
Might walk, when he tires as king.
Here the phoenix is on wing;
Here sing all who sing can.

Wild as the notes of thrushes
The song of the robin rushes.
And here the bluejay's sharpest notes
Are reproduced by pigeons' throats.
Here song piles on song, and crushes

Out the threat of silence forever.
The gardens cannot from song dissever
Themselves, and none shall try.
Too much beauty here seeks to fly,
Rises from her cocoon forever,

And spreads tender, still-wet wings.
In moments, that beauty springs,
Her wings dried by the gentle sun,
Over the flowers in a shining run:
Silver butterflies whose leader sings

In a voice too much like bells
To be real, or be ought else.
Wild, wild, there dances the beauty,
The kind of killing ecstasy
That side by side with man never dwells.

But here it lives, and lives long,
Caught in a timeless moment of song.
These notes are shrill with passion,
Breathless with all delight can fashion,
Delicately conceived, yet strong

As a lyric that lives upon the page
Long after the poet has shed the rage
Of beauty that his soul consumed
When the blossom in his soul bloomed.
Xanadu here roars out of its cage,

Stalks free and mighty as the words
That Coleridge wrote when he heard birds
Singing within the walléd gardens.
His omission of them my heart pardons.
I can see the towers of which I heard

Standing at the edge of the green.
Such white walls I have never seen.
Like mother-of-pearl they gleam!
Like harps of swan-bone in a dream!
They make sparkling the pure serene

That fills my lungs. Can this be air?
That I have breathed all my life in uncare?
Surely this is not air; it is some wine
Mixed with the air by hands divine.
Even the wind unseen appears fair,

And beckons me on like a hand
To see the wonders of this land.
I hear before I see them the rills,
Come galloping down from hills
Sweetly shaped as a lover's demand.

Their song is faster and more clever
Than the song I would hear forever,
The song of the gardens' symphony.
The rills chatter and scold at me,
And I would leave them never.

But already a different kind of tune
Leads me on- and not too soon.
I cannot believe that I have dwelt
Without seeing what I have now smelt,
The trees with blossoms bright as moon

That smell like incense from Araby.
The phoenix nests in such a tree.
The scent is a compilation of many things,
Many songs- as when an orchestra sings,
I cannot trick the scent of citrus free

From the scent of water clean,
From the smell of a forest green,
From the scent of cloves and grain,
From the scent of balms for pain,
From the smell of elves unseen.

I lay my hand on a tree's trunk,
And for just a moment seize a chunk
Of its song, pure, the song of life.
This living thing knows no strife,
Knows nothing of living's dunk

In many an unpleasant pool.
I wish to commune with this jewel,
But my vision flutters then and turns,
Across the air like a comet burns,
And I must follow; I am just the tool.

The scent of cedars takes me fast,
Comes over me in shining blast.
Then I realize that I am standing
On a precipice with a view commanding,
And the time for ignorance is past.

This- this, I think, dazed, is splendor.
And my soul bows down in surrender,
For before me the boulders bound,
Cracking like thunder along the ground.
Springing from the chasm, a slender

Finger of water thrusts up, growing
Much the larger in its swift going,
And tosses the boulders aside
Like a trapper tossing a worthless hide.
Its cymbal-roar, its deluge-flowing,

Its rose-flowering, its heron-grace,
Its Muse-dancing, its God-face,
Its tiger-savagery, its demon-strength,
Its song of unguessable majestic length-
All of these and more hold me in place.

The song of the fountain is a geyser
Upon a flood, the gold of a miser
As it lies in his dead fingers.
In air, in water, in stone it lingers,
Of musicality the despiser;

For the definitions it refines
All around it with its screaméd lines.
It does not sound, to a human ear
Pleasant, or stately, or deep and dear.
That does not matter; it defines

Its own music; it is music reborn,
Sounded from the Wild Hunt's horn,
Played at sacrifices; it is fountain,
Leaping, singing, born of mountain.
I realize that; my heart is torn.

But my vision does not yet rest.
It flutters away into the west,
And, still helpless, I must follow
Into hollow singing and singing hollow.
My vision there completes its quest

By floating just above the shade
That by the dome is on the water laid.
Beneath me, the waves wild rush;
Above me, the dome looms to crush
The watcher for the mistake he has made,

Thinking he could come here undefended.
My soul is torn apart and mended
Countless times by the dome's beauty.
But to bear witness I have a duty,
And slowly, my eyes are befriended

By the calmer and gentler, tamer tones
Imposed by men on the wild bones
Of the dome built for pleasure.
Helpless in the mingled measure
That Coleridge spoke of, my heart moans,

And would gladly stay out the vision
In this place. But not my decision
It is, as I am reminded again.
The vision whisks me off just when
I would have lost all volition.

I hear then a song in a human voice,
And begin to trust my vision's choice.
It flutters and alights upon a boulder.
I see the sleek and sprightly shoulder
Of a maiden with eyes like turquoise,

Hair like onyx, skin like amber,
Singing to her dulcimer's timbre.
I lie back and listen, touched and raw,
To the tune of Abora,
Wishing I could to her breast clamber,

And never stir again all my days.
Her song wanders in a maze
Of repeated words and rhyme,
Ever to the dulcimer keeping time,
Which with gold hammers she plays.

I lie there, almost asleep,
When my vision makes a leap,
The strangest leap of all it's made.
I must leave my precious jade,
And come to cups from which there seep

Scents of strange and mingled bliss-
Honey mixed with wilderness.
I lick one cup's rim; it's true.
The singer fed on honey-dew,
And there it lies, its offer this:

Wild vision and wild glory,
Strength of song and strength of story,
Soaring high to neverland,
Giving in to passion's demand,
And in madness growing hoary.

The other cup contains the silk
Of a rose-scented sappharine milk.
I lick cautiously: milk of Paradise.
For this, what mad sacrifice?
It is, I suspect, of honey-dew's ilk.

I close my eyes, and remember
How Coleridge sank to an ashy ember
Because of the person from Porlock
Who chose the wrong time to knock.
Can I truly enter sanity's December,

All for the sake of an opium dream?
True, so tempting the cups gleam!
To return to my world, or to beauty?
I know where lies the greater duty!
I make for the cups; but they seem

To be going, fading away.
I cry out, and lunge, and flay
With wild hands at the air.
They continue going, without care.
Then the vision sweeps away,

And before me I see the locks
Of the white page that mocks
Me with what I know's true:
'Never can you enter Xanadu.'
The outside world calmly knocks,

And enters in. Done a great wrong,
Knowing that I stayed too long,
Knowing part of me will never depart,
Knowing myself of unhuman heart,
Still I rise, bereft of song.

Then a message memories deliver:
I hear the song of the sacred river.
And to me, like a criminal's pardons
To him, come the lovely gardens,
And the songs that made me shiver.

All the memories treasured pour
Into me, and lay themselves in store.
I hold out my hands in welcome.
True, I may never come
To the Khan's Xanadu any more,

But it has come- to me, forlorn!
I turn back, no longer forsworn
From my witness-bearing duty.
I can still see, still bear beauty;
In me, Xanadu lies, reborn.