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One says, it is like a hive covered by a swarm of burning bees; others, that it is the enchanted palace in the gardens of Gul in the depths of the Arabian nights, like a gigantic tiara set with wonderful diamonds, larger than those which Sinbad found in the roc's valley, like the palace of the fairies in the dreams of childhood, like the stately pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan in Xanadu, and twenty other whimsical things.
It is this fable of the underground course of Alpheus that Coleridge alludes to in his poem of Kubla Khan: "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."
Changtu, the Xanadu of Coleridge, the famous summer palace of Kublai, had been destroyed during the campaigns with the Mongols, and Hongwou systematically discouraged any attempt to embellish the northern capital, Pekin, which, under the Kin and Yuen dynasties, had become identified with foreign rulers.
Baltzell writes elaborate accompaniments, for which his skill is sufficient, and he is not afraid of his effects. In the far Xanadu of Colorado lives Rubin Goldmark, a nephew of the famous Carl Goldmark. He was born in New York in 1872. He attended the public schools and the College of the City of New York.
North of the Great Wall, and some one hundred and eighty miles from Cambuluc, was the Great Khan's summer palace, one of the wonders of the world, reading of which in Purchas' account of Marco Polo's travels, it is said that Coleridge fell asleep and dreamed the famous poem beginning: "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea."
Strolling through the grounds with the mauve and amber domes of their temples dimly lighted I found myself murmuring: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree." In a canyon by the sea we found a theatre. The setting was perfect and the performance was worthy of it.
And in the languid laziness that stole upon Venice, as well as upon us, I penetrated for the first time to the inner meaning of the chapter in his Venetian Life that Howells labels Comincia far Caldo, the season when repose takes you to her inner heart and you learn her secrets, when at last you know why it was an Abyssinian maid who played upon her dulcimer, at last you recognize in Xanadu the land where you were born.
As a babe, was I still I? What is Myself? When did I come to Myself? How far can I extend Myself? My feet are here, but in a moment my spirit can flee to Xanadu and Zanzibar. There is no spot in the universe where I may not go. Where, then, are the limits of Myself? Personality is never for a single moment fixed: it is as changing and evanescent as a cloud.
Indeed his description of the summer palace is better known to Englishmen than any other part of his work, for Shandu is Xanadu, which Coleridge saw in a dream after he had been reading Marco's book and wove into wonderful verse: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree, Where Alph the sacred river ran, Past caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea.
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree." Coleridge. I am the owner of great estates. Many of them lie in the West; but the greater part are in Spain. You may see my western possessions any evening at sunset when their spires and battlements flash against the horizon.
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