Whether in heaven ye wander fair

Or the green corners of the earth, Or the blue regions of the air,

Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wandering in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move,
The sound is forced, the notes are few!

KUBLA KHAN.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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 girdled 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,

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 of 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 played,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deen delight twould win

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 eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

THE EPOCH ENDS, THE WORLD IS STILL.

From BACCHANALIA; OR, THE NEW AGE.

Matthew Arnold.

THE epoch ends, the world is still.
The age has talk'd and work'd its fill-

The famous orators have shone,

The famous poets sung and gone,
The famous men of war have fought,
The famous speculators thought,
The famous players, sculptors, wrought,
The famous painters fill'd their wall,
The famous critics judged it all.
The combatants are parted now
Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,

The puissant crown'd, the weak laid low.
And in the after-silence sweet,

Now strifes are hush'd, our ears doth meet,

Ascending pure, the bell-like fame

Of this or that down-trodden name
Delicate spirits, push'd away

In the hot press of the noon-day.
And o'er the plain, where the dead age
Did its now silent warfare wage-

O'er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,
Where many a splendor finds its tomb,
Many spent fames and fallen nights-
The one or two immortal lights
Rise slowly up into the sky
To shine there everlastingly,
Like stars over the bounding hill.

The epoch ends, the world is still.

MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS.

Edward Dyer.

My minde to me a kingdome is;
Such perfect joy therein I finde
As farre exceeds all earthly blisse,
That God or Nature hath assignde:
Though much I want, that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

Content I live, this is my stay;

I seek no more than may suffice:
I presse to beare no haughtie sway;
Look what I lack my mind supplies.

Loe! thus I triumph like a king,

Content with that my mind doth bring.

I see how plentie surfets oft,

And hastie clymbers soonest fall: I see that such as sit aloft

Mishap doth threaten most of all: These get with toile, and keep with feare: Such cares my mind could never beare.

No princely pompe, nor welthie store,
No force to winne the victorie,
No wylie wit to salve a sore,

No shape to winne a lover's eye;
To none of these I yeeld as thrall,

For why, my mind despiseth all.

Some have too much, yet still they crave,
I little have, yet seek no more:
They are but poore, tho' much they have;
And I am rich with little store:

They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lacke, I lend; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another's losse,

I grudge not at another's gaine;
No worldly wave my mind can tosse,
I brooke that is another's bane.
I feare no foe, nor fawne on friend;
I lothe not life, nor dread mine end.

I joy not in no earthly blisse;

I weigh not Croesus' welth a straw;