[293:1] First published in 1834. 'In a manuscript list (undated) of the poems drawn up by Coleridge appear these items together: Love 96 lines . . . The Black Ladié 190 lines.' Note to P. W., 1893, p. 614. A MS. of the three last stanzas is extant. In Chapter XIV of the Biographia Literaria, 1817, ii. 3 Coleridge synchronizes the Dark Ladié (a poem which he was 'preparing' with the Christabel). It would seem probable that it belongs to the spring or early summer of 1798, and that it was anterior to Love, which was first published in the Morning Post, December 21, 1799, under the heading 'Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladié'. If the MS. List of Poems is the record of poems actually written, two-thirds of the Dark Ladié must have perished long before 1817, when Sibylline Leaves was passing through the press, and it was found necessary to swell the Contents with 'two School-boy Poems' and 'with a song modernized with some additions from one of our elder poets'.
pace] go MS. S. T. C.
The following fragment is here published at the request
of a poet of great and deserved celebrity [Lord Byron], and,
as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as
a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed
poetic merits. 5
In the summer of the year 1797[295:2], the Author, then in ill
health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock
and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire.
In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne
had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep 10
in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following
sentence, or words of the same substance, in 'Purchas's
Pilgrimage': 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace
to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten
miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'[296:1] The
Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep,
at least of the external senses, during which time he has the
most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less
than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can
be called composition in which all the images rose up before 20
him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent
expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort.
On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection
of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly
and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At
this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on
business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour,
and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise
and mortification, that though he still retained some vague
and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, 30
with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and
images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the
surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas!
without the after restoration of the latter!
Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the
Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had
been originally, as it were, given to him. Σαμερον αδιον ασω[297:1]
[Αὔριον ἅδιον ἄσω 1834]: but the to-morrow is yet to come.
As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a
very different character, describing with equal fidelity the 50
dream of pain and disease.[297:2]
1798.
[295:1] First published together with Christabel and The Pains of Sleep, 1816: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834.
[295:2] There can be little doubt that Coleridge should have written 'the summer of 1798'. In an unpublished MS. note dated November 3, 1810, he connects the retirement between 'Linton and Porlock' and a recourse to opium with his quarrel with Charles Lloyd, and consequent distress of mind. That quarrel was at its height in May 1798. He alludes to distress of mind arising from 'calumny and ingratitude from men who have been fostered in the bosom of my confidence' in a letter to J. P. Estlin, dated May 14, 1798; and, in a letter to Charles Lamb, dated [Spring] 1798, he enlarges on his quarrel with Lloyd and quotes from Lloyd's novel of Edmund Oliver which was published in 1798. See Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1895, i. 245, note 1. I discovered and read for the first time the unpublished note of November 3, 1810, whilst the edition of 1893 was in the press, and in a footnote to p. xlii of his Introduction the editor, J. D. Campbell, explains that it is too late to alter the position and date of Kubla Khan, but accepts the later date (May, 1798) on the evidence of the MS. note.
[296:1] 'In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure.'—Purchas his Pilgrimage: Lond. fol. 1626, Bk. IV, chap. xiii, p. 418.
[297:1] The quotation is from Theocritus, i. 145:—ἐς ὕστερον ἅδιον ᾀσῶ.
[297:2] The Pains of Sleep.
[297:3] And woman wailing for her Demon Lover. Motto to Byron's Heaven and Earth, published in The Liberal, No. II, January 1, 1823.
[297:4] With lines 17-24 compare William Bartram's description of the 'Alligator-Hole.' Travels in North and South Carolina, 1794, pp. 286-8.
[298:1] Compare Thomas Maurice's History of Hindostan, 1795, i. 107. The reference is supplied by Coleridge in the Gutch Memorandum Note Book (B. M. Add. MSS., No. 27, 901), p. 47: 'In a cave in the mountains of Cashmere an Image of Ice,' &c.
[298:2] In her 'Lines to S. T. Coleridge, Esq.,' Mrs. Robinson (Perdita) writes:—
It is possible that she had seen a MS. copy of Kubla Khan containing these variants from the text.
Title of Introduction:—Of the Fragment of Kubla Khan 1816, 1828, 1829.
om. 1834.
there] here S. L. 1828, 1829.
Enfolding] And folding 1816. The word 'Enfolding' is a pencil emendation in David Hinves's copy of Christabel. ? by S. T. C.
In the early copies of 1893 this line was accidentally omitted.
drunk] drank 1816, 1828, 1829.
1798.
[299:1] First published in the Morning Post for July 30, 1798, with the following title and introduction:—'Original Poetry. A Tale. The following amusing Tale gives a very humourous description of the French Revolution, which is represented as an Ox': included in Annual Anthology, 1800, and Sibylline Leaves, 1817; reprinted in Essays on His Own Times, 1880, iii 963-9. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80. In a copy of the Annual Anthology of 1800 Coleridge writes over against the heading of this poem, 'Written when fears were entertained of an invasion, and Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Tierney were absurdly represented as having recanted because to [The French Revolution (?)] in its origin they, [having been favourable, changed their opinion when the Revolutionists became unfaithful to their principles (?)].' See Note to P. W., 1893.
The text is that of Sibylline Leaves and Essays on his Own Times.
[300:1] One of the many fine words which the most uneducated had about this time a constant opportunity of acquiring, from the sermons in the pulpit and the proclamations on [in S. L.] the —— corners. An. Anth., S. L.
[302:1] According to the common superstition there are two ways of fighting with the Devil. You may cut him in half with a straw, or he will vanish if you spit over his horns with a fasting spittle. Note by S. T. C. in M. P. According to the superstition of the West-Countries, if you meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, or force him to disappear by spitting over his horns. An. Anth., S. L.
turn'd out] loosen'd M. P.
ox] beast M. P.
beast] ox M. P.
fastens] fasten'd M. P.
'You cruel dog!' at once they bawl. M. P.
Oh] Ah! M. P., An. Anth.
om. Essays, &c.
run] drive M. P.
fiend] rogue M. P.
Mat, Tom, Bob, Dick M. P.
The baited ox drove on M. P., An. Anth.
No . . . print] The Gospel scarce M. P., An. Anth.
cannot] could M. P.
The ox drove on, right through the town M. P.
may] might M. P., An. Anth.
any] a mad M. P.
heat and fright] flight and fear M. P., An. Anth.
this] the M. P.
beast] ox M. P.
agree] agreed M. P.
scour'd] drove M. P.
Alas] Alack M. P.
cried] bawl'd M. P.
Tom! Walter! Mat! M. P.
lying] bare-faced M. P.
But lo! to interrupt my chat M. P.
In came] In rush'd M. P.
And he rush'd in M. P.
I forget the beginning of the line: