The Poetry Fix

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I’m your host, Erika Kyba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time.

Today, we’re finishing out Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” If you recall, last week we ended with utter upheaval as a fountain bursts forth from underground and throws the landscape into chaos. In today’s excerpt, the last stanza of the poem, we encounter a major tonal shift. Coleridge introduces the image of “a damsel with a dulcimer” whom he, the poet, saw in a vision, whose music he pines for. He believes that if he could revive the damsel’s music within him, then he could rebuild Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome and the caves of ice around it through the power of song. That’s an image that bears questioning: what would it even mean to build the dome out of music? I think there’s a strong suggestion that Coleridge is referencing the act of poetry here: poetry, especially metered poetry, is often described in musical terms. And even though it's a very auditory medium, there’s a visual axis to it as well. Poetry often deals in imagery, and it allows you to see what the poet wants you to see without using any kind of literal picture. Because of this, Coleridge believes that he could reconstruct the pleasure dome for us out of thin air.
But there’s a problem. Coleridge never succeeds in reviving the dulcimer melody within himself, so his poetic project is somewhat stifled. Perhaps this is why we are only given a fragment of his vision, and not the whole story: if the melody is lost to us, so is the pleasure dome, and with it, the bulk of Coleridge’s vision. All he (and us readers) are left with is the barest memory of a dream, and the impressions that it left on him.
Coleridge then concludes his poem by uniting the delightful and the terrible, much in the same way as he began the poem. He writes that the maiden’s music, if he could revive it, would provoke “deep delight.” And yet, he doesn’t seem to believe that we would respond with delight if he shared the music with us. Instead, he imagines that people will cry “beware” when they see the ecstatic state that he enters, and “weave a circle round him thrice,” a ritual meant to confine potentially dangerous magical energies. The final judgement of the onlookers is that “he on honey-dew hath fed, / And drunk the milk of Paradise.” Strangely, it’s the poet’s overflowing joy which has provoked fear in others. Why might this be?
Let’s think of it through the lens of the poem’s opening images. Coleridge began the poem by setting up an idyllic scene for us, which is complete with fertile land and rich gardens, but which is not free of danger. The measureless caves and the earth-shattering fountain are just below the surface. Beauty is undergirded with a sense of danger. That’s exactly why Coleridge doesn’t believe that the dulcimer song is an object of universal delight. The sunny dome and the caves of ice go together. The person who has drunk the milk of Paradise has approached a divine power that can be just as destructive as it is constructive. So, the onlookers “close their eyes in holy dread.” They prefer not to have an encounter with divine beauty if it’s going to threaten their security.

With all that said, let’s dive in.

Kubla Khan
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

You've been listening to The Poetry Fix, with Erika Kyba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following The Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to thepoetryfix@gmail.com. Join me next week, and we'll be reading George Herbert’s “The Agony.”