The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination

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Houghton Mifflin, 1927 - 639 pages
 

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Page 408 - 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 I And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry,
Page 79 - Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.
Page 250 - I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach.
Page 566 - A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust. I closed my lids, and kept them close, And the balls like pulses beat; For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet.
Page 210 - With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood ; I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail ! a sail ! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call ; Gramercy ! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all. See ! see ! I cried, she tacks no more Hither to work us weal, Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel...
Page 281 - ... eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream,! To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; Yet never a breeze...
Page 250 - Lyrical Ballads; in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
Page 64 - Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. "Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.
Page 251 - By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? 'The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.
Page 387 - 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...

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