'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The only manuscript of Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' is currently on display at the Museum of Somerset as part of our latest exhibition 'In Xanadu: Coleridge and the West Country'.

The transcript of the manuscript reads:
In Xannadù did Cubla Khan
A stately Pleasure-Dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred River, ran
Thro’ Caverns measureless to Man
Down to a sunless Sea.
So twice six miles of fertile ground
With Walls and Towers were compass’d round:
And here were Gardens bright with sinuous Rills
Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing Tree,
And here were Forests ancient as the Hills
Enfolding sunny spots of Greenery.
But o! that deep romantic Chasm, that slanted
Down a green Hill athwart a cedarn Cover,
A savage Place, as holy and inchanted
As e’er beneath a waning Moon was haunted
By Woman wailing for her Daemon Lover:
From forth this chasm with hideous Turmoil seething,
As if this Earth in fast thick Pants were breathing,
A mighty Fountain momently was forc’d,
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 & ever
It flung up momently the sacred River.
Five miles meandring with a mazy Motion
Thro’ Wood and Dale the sacred River ran,
Then reach’d the Caverns measureless to Man
And sank in Tumult to a lifeless Ocean;
And mid this Tumult Cubla heard from far
Ancestral Voices prophesying War.
The Shadow of the Dome of Pleasure
Floated midway on the Wave
Where was heard the mingled Measure
From the Fountain and the Cave.
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 play’d
Singing of Mount Amara.
Could I revive within me
Her Symphony & Song,
To such a deep Delight ’twould 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 Eyes in holy Dread:
For He on Honey-dew hath fed
And drank the Milk of Paradise.

The exhibition is part of The British Library's 'Treasures on Tour' programme, generously supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust.