Kubla Khan

Samuel Taylor Coleridge provides several Romantic themes and ideals such as mystery and the value of nature in his poem "Kubla Kahn." In the first line, Kubla Kahn resides in an exotic place called Xanadu, a pleasure dome placed on a sacred river which shows the kinship of nature. The exotic "measureless caverns" proves that nature is physically greater than man. The "sunless sea" provides mystery within the poem. A shift takes place that puts a mysterious, wild, and possibly dangerous outlook on nature. The forests are "ancient as hills" stating that nature came before man and is therefore superior. The speaker takes the reader to a different realm which becomes obvious when he states "ancestral voices [are] prophesying war" and it is believed that he took opium to achieve an alternate state of consciousness. The speaker wants to obtain the vision and relive it over and over again by building the pleasure dome in the sky and capturing the mystery and beauty; even though the people will fear his holy power and say "beware! Beware! / he's drunk the milk of Paradise."