Daily national Democrat., 1861-03-15
Disenchantmenf.

Disenchantmenf.
Thoughts wizard ring gets disenchanted." >"
So says Bailey, in his great poem of Festus.
He means that, at those rare times in which
the spell of insl iration is present, the inlagi-
nation aelow, aud the whole mind illumina-
ted the inierpostion of the gr and common
affairs of life di- solve es the charm and the how
erng and descending thought takes its flight,
never to return How much the world has
lost, by the same continual and merciess
disenchantments of genius How much
would we not give for the remainder of that
mystical and beautiful poetic dream of Cole
ridge. of which we have part;
ain Xanadu did Kubla Kahn
A stately plcasure.done decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless tC man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were glrdled round
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rllls
Where blossomed MANY an ense.breathing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the Ellis,
Enfolding 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 waning moon was haunted
BY woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseess turmoil
seethng,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing
mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift hali.intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail:
Or chaffy grain beneath the threshers fail
Aud mid these dancing rocks ut once and ever
1t flung up momenty the sacred river
Five miles meandering with may motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeess ocean:
And mid this tumut Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophecying war!
The shadow Of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves:
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
1t was miracle Of rare device,
sunny peasure-dome with caves of ice
A damsel with ducimer
In vision once saw:
1t was an Abysinnian maid,
Aud on her dulcmer she played,
| Singing of Mount Abora
| Could revive within me
Her symphony and song,
| 10 such "a deep OellgnJ tWOulu VIII ule
That with music loud and long,
| would build that dune 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 foating 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"
But the gross realities of life broke in on
the wizard ring" of the poet and he stood
disenchanted. Our readers probably know
the very peculiar manner in which the fore
going lines were produced. The Poet, being
indisposed, had taken an anodyne, and fell
asleep while reading the following sentences
in Purchas' Pilgrimage;
Here the Khan Kubla commanded
palace to be built, and a stately garden there
unto; and thus ten miles of fertile ground
were enclosed within a wall"
He continued sleeping for three hours, and
waking, had distict recollection OF having
composed, in that space of time, from two to
three hundred lines He instantly seized a
pen, and wrote from the memory OF his
dream the lines above given. At the moment
of finishing the last line quoted, he was called
out, on business, by some intruder, of the
genus practical, and detained for over an
hour. When he returned, he sat down
eagerly to finish the work; but the whole
beautiful word-lubric and vision had fed.
lie never recalled it,
This same kind Of mental exaltation occurs
in the waking state as well, and men Of
genius are often conscious of writing by a
sort Of inspiration which seems, with scarce
an effort on their part, to give them the
thought and the word simultaneously. Such
moods are rare, and, broken in upon, are
slow to return. When the Angel in the Sun
says Write !" Mcn must they write, OF the
golden glory will fall but dimly Oh their
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