"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world and all our woe."

It is only when we review the strangely mingled elements 5 which make up the poem that we realize the genius which fused them into such a perfect whole. perfect whole. The meager outline of the Hebrew legend is lost in the splendor and music of Milton's verse. The stern idealism of Geneva is clothed in the gorgeous robes of the Renaissance. If 10 we miss something of the free play of Spenser's fancy, and yet more of the imaginative delight in their own creations which gives so exquisite a life to the poetry of the early dramatists, we find in place of these the noblest example which our literature affords of the majesty of classic 15 form.

Scrivener a person whose business it is to draw contracts. Prẻ cis' (sizh) I an: Puritan. The Puritans of England were so called from their prim and precise manner. Humane letters: polite or elegant learning; the term was applied to the language, history, and literature of Greece and Rome. Protector : Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the English commonwealth. King: Charles I., king of England, who was deposed and beheaded in 1649 by authority of the Puritan or Roundhead party. Fire of London: the "great fire" of London in 1666 raged four days and destroyed thirteen thousand houses. A'rīan ism: the doctrines of the Arians, or followers of Arius, who taught that Christ was inferior to God the Father, though the first and noblest of all created beings. John Web'ster: an English dramatist who flourished in the seventeenth century. Philip Mǎss'in ger (1583-1640): an English dramatist. Hĕr'rick (1591-1674): an English poet. Richard Crǎsh'aw (1613?-1649); an English poet. Ġe ne'và: the stronghold of the reformed religion, the home of John Calvin, the great Protestant reformer.

Robert

Kubla Khan

By S. T. COLERIDGE

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): An English poet and critic, who possessed rare genius, but lacked "the reason firm, the tempered will." He wrote "The Ancient Mariner," "Genevieve," "Kubla Khan," and a few other poems of exquisite beauty and imaginative power. "Christabel," like most of his projected work, is a fragment. His conversation, or rather monologue, was fluent and eloquent. Several volumes of his "Literary Remains" and "Table Talk" were published after his death.

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,
Infolding 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,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :

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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 mid way 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 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."

Kub'là Khän (—1294): an able ruler who made himself master of a vast empire, including China and almost the whole of Asia. Sin'ü ous: winding; bending in and out. Mê ăn'der ing: winding; turning. Důl'çi mer: a musical instrument having wire strings which are beaten with two light hammers.

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