The Publishers desire to respect the moral claims of authors who cannot secure legal copyright in this country, and to remunerate equitably those whose works they may reprint. The books will be issued at short intervals, in paper covers, at various prices, from 1s. to 3s. 6d., and well bound in cloth top edge gilt at 6d. per volume extra. They will also be kept in superior bindings for presents and prizes. Now Ready. Burns's Poems. 2s. 6d. Burns's Songs. 2s. 6d. Walton's Complete Angler. 2s. 6d. Sea Songs and Ballads. By Dibdin, and others. 2s. 6d. White's Natural History of Selborne. 3s. Coleridge's Poems. 2s. 6d. The Robin Hood Ballads. 2s. 6d. The Lieutenant and Commander. By Capt. Hall, R.N. 3s. The Midshipman. By Capt. Basil Hall, R.N. 3s. Southey's Life of Nelson. 2s. 6d. George Herbert's Poems. 2s. George Herbert's Works. 3s. Longfellow's Poems. 2s. 6d. Lamb's Tales from Shakspeare. 2s. 6d. Milton's Paradise Lost. 2s. 6d. Milton's Paradise Regained and other Poems. 2s. 6d. Preparing. Walton's Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, &c. The Conquest of India. By Capt. Basil Hall, R.N. Gray's Poems. Goldsmith's Poems. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Henry Vaughan's Poems. Other Works are in Preparation. IN the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmore confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effect of which he fell asleep 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." 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 him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening 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, 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 had. been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter: Then all the charm Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Stay awhile, Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes— 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. Aŭgov ädiov äow: 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 dream of pain and disease.-1816. KUBLA KHAN. IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, A mighty fountain momently was forced : The shadow of the dome of pleasure Where was heard the mingled measure It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome 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 floating hair, And close your eyes with holy dread, And drunk the milk of Paradise. THE PAINS OF SLEEP. RE on my bed my limbs I lay, My spirit I to Love compose, No wish conceived, no thought exprest, But yester-night I prayed aloud Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: Sense of intolerable wrong, And whom I scorned, those only strong! |