that imagination could at will supply its wants. His eyes could "make pictures when they are shut," and could carry him momentarily, as on some magic carpet, to a dreamland beyond the limitations of mortal experience. The same exquisite and meticulous perception which enabled Coleridge to realize and remember the double sound of rain, the "quiet sounds from hidden rills," among the heather, the slanting shower of blossoms on the "faint gale of departing May,"--revealed to him how 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. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, 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 a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! * * * * * Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! Such, in fact, was the dual capacity of Coleridge's mind,--such its ability to commingle the actual and the imaginary, that whilst he could at one moment paint the gentle English landscape in which he dwelt,-- Low was our pretty Cot; our tallest Rose Peeped at the chamber-window. We could hear At silent noon, and eve, and early morn, The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the Porch Thick Jasmins twin'd: the little landscape round, Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. It was a spot which you might aptly call The Valley of Seclusion! he was enabled to describe, with the verisimilitude of perfect memory, the dim sea-reaches where,-- ... Now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald. And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen: Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-- The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound! At length did cross an Albatross,-- Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name. It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through!