Spambot of the day; poem of the day
This seemed like a most unusual spambot, with a rather elegant and “literary” sound to it:
The landlady sobbing and wailing at her forlorn condition like a peasant woman.
So I looked it up, and sure enough, it’s from this Dostoevsky story.
It also reminded me instantly of this poem by Coleridge; here’s the poem’s beginning:
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.
And here’s the part the spambot conjured up for me:
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
Then there’s also Picasso’s Weeping Woman.
The poem “Kublai Khan” has long fascinated me. For one thing, Coleridge says it came to him in a dream – actually, an opium-induced dream. Here’s the fuller story:
According to Coleridge’s preface to “Kubla Khan”, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan (Emperor Shizu of Yuan). Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by “a person on business from Porlock”. The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.
The poem is vastly different in style from other poems written by Coleridge.
Actually, I’d say it’s different from most other poems written by anyone, period. It does seem to come from another place. We don’t really know what it’s about in the conventional sense. It’s a mystical and lyrical poetic vision, that’s all. That’s the way I see it, anyway.
The last stanza gave me an involuntary chill the first time I read it, as a teenager. And it still does – every time I read it:
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 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 with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
“Kublai Khan” has intrigued me since I read it in high school. I had not heard it was inspired by an opium dream, but that does not surprise me. It is both lyrical and unsettling. I’d like to read an explanation of what it all means.
I guess it takes more than cheap port to be that–inventive doesn’t cover it and I’m switched if I know what does–capable of hitting deep into practically every reader who’s had more than high school world history.
And to view it coming from a more ordered era in British society, between the Restoration and the Regency. As if…the sky didn’t meet the horizon that one time (Cribbed from Lincoln) when the rest of the time it was bolted down.
I try to enision it…..
F:
I don’t think even Coleridge could give you an explanation.
Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency revolves around the lost ending of “Kubla Khan”, as its existence represents a threat to the human race, and clears up the mystery of “a person on business from Porlock” as well as what the poem was really about.
Considerably less zany than The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, and I think it is his best-written book.
Neo:
Well that’s reassuring. Thanks.
One of my favorite poems, and one of my dad’s favorites, too!
I know of it, knew it came from a drug induced dream, but I have never read it.
A fragment with more power than a polished work – like the Nike of Samothrace.
Ray Bradbury wrote a lovely short story, (very) loosely inspired by the Coleridge poem, called “A Miracle of Rare Device”. I read it as a child long before I knew of the poem.
https://thephilosopher.net/bredberi/wp-content/uploads/sites/429/2025/03/A-Miracle-of-Rare-Device-Ray-Bradbury.pdf
Some American writer expressed his skepticism of the Person from Porlock story, figuring that Coleridge just ran out of inspiration and got stuck.
Inspiration can come on so strong and effortless, then desert a writer, especially if it is based in part on drugs.
“Kublai Khan” is a near miraculous fragment. I can well understand Coleridge’s decision not to finish it with more pedestrian poetry.
Bob Dylan had an amazing run through “Blonde on Blonde” (1966). Then that well ran dry.
________________________________
Bradley: Have you ever looked back at the music you have written with surprise?
Dylan: I used to. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t know how I got to write those songs. Those early songs were almost magically written. Try to sit down and write something like “It’s Alright Ma.” There’s a magic to that, and it’s not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It’s a different kind of penetrating magic. And, you know, I did it. I did it at one time.
Bradley: Do you think you can do it again today?
Dylan: No. You can’t do something forever. I did it once, and I can do other things now. But, I can’t do that.
https://www.liesegardner.com/blog/bob-dylan-on-magical-writing
huxley:
The Bee Gees said many songs just came to them, in that same way.
The survivor, Barry, still writes songs. But not like that.
neo:
Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones considered himself more of an antenna than a creator. He often felt he was picking up transmissions from somewhere.
He woke up out of a dead sleep with the riff for “Satisfaction” in his head. He rolled over, picked up his guitar and played it into a cassette player. Then he rolled back, fell asleep and forgot it … until he checked his tape player.
The rest is history.