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PWB Peeps Open Thread: Poetry of Coleridge [1]
['View Profile', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'Greg Dworkin']
Date: 2026-05-15
Attribution: Sarah Warda (American, born 1967) Glimmer, 2024 Oil, phosphorescent pigment, strontium aluminate on board 12 × 12 in (30.5 × 30.5 cm) Private collection Sarah Warda is an American realist painter from Connecticut. Using the human form, her works often reveal the vulnerability and inner soul of her subject. She received her formal education from the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the Art Students league of New York with Harvey Dinnerstein and workshops with Aaron Shikler. Her work has been displayed in notable venues such as, the National Arts Club of New York, New Britain Museum of American Art, and the Zhou B Art Center Chicago. She has participated in several exhibitions including Connecticut Women Artists, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Arts Club NY, and PoetsArtists. She has been commissioned for numerous illustrations, murals and portraits for public, private and corporate collections. And through the Lunar Codex, she is among one of the first women artists to have her pai
Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
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.
Attribution: Image by Hardik Shah from Pixabay domes and spires are seen through a fog turned orange.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Attribution: "Cloud Wall" at the NY Chinese Scholar's Garden, at Snug Harbor on Staten Island Ming Dynasty-style Scholar’s Garden at the Snug Harbor historic site and park on Staten Island: outdoor garden view showing the traditional wall formation, much resembling asperitas clouds.
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!
Attribution: Catharina van Knibbergen, Dutch, active c. 1630-1675 A Grotto with a Mountain Stream, n.d. "Van Knibbergen was a landscape painter of significant fame during her lifetime, however today not much information remains about her life. Her birth and death dates are unknown but it is speculated that she might have been born around 1610. She could have been the daughter of the painter François van Knibbergen, also a landscape painter.
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
Attribution: foresterbob Echinus Geyser in Norris Geyser Basin, 1971 color slide.
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Attribution: Wikipedia.org Meanders of the Rio Cauto at Guamo Embarcadero, Cuba
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!
Attribution: foresterbob Waterfall in Columbia Gorge
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
Ice cave in a remnant of Marr Ice Piedmont glacier near Palmer Station US science base, on the Antarctic Peninsula, January 2000. Made by Gary Braasch for his World View of Global Warming project. Like most Antarctic Peninsula glaciers, this one has
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Attribution: Chuck Stanley Mountain Dulcimer built by Chuck Stanley
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!
Attribution: Helen Cordero [Helen Quintana Cordero] (Native American: Cochiti Pueblo, 1915-1994) Storyteller Figure, 1969 Clay pottery with hand painting 23.5 x 15.5 x 27 cm Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Helen Cordero was a Cochiti Pueblo potter from Cochiti, New Mexico. She was renowned for her storyteller pottery figurines, a motif she invented based upon the traditional "singing mother" motif. She first learned to create leatherwork, then in the 1950s started making pottery birds and animals that her husband painted. Cordero "followed a traditional way of life including digging her own clay and preparing her own pigments." She used three types of clay, all sourced near Cochiti Pueblo, and clay and plant materials for paint. Over time, Helen's finish became more refined, and she made her children separately, instead of from the primary piece of clay, allowing for her to vary their placement around the Storyteller. As Helen's work progressed, she Helen Cordero [Helen Quintana Cordero] (Native American: Cochiti Pueblo, 1915-1994) Storyteller Figure, 1969 Clay pottery with hand painting 23.5 x 15.5 x 27 cm Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Helen Cordero was a Cochiti Pueblo potter from Cochiti, New Mexico. She was renowned for her storyteller pottery figurines, a motif she invented based upon the traditional "singing mother" motif. She first learned to create leatherwork, then in the 1950s started making pottery birds and animals that her husband painted. Cordero "followed a traditional way of life including digging her own clay and preparing her own pigments." She used three types of clay, all sourced near Cochiti Pueblo, and clay and plant materials for paint. Over time, Helen's finish became more refined, and she made her children separately, instead of from the primary piece of clay, allowing for her to vary their placement around the Storyteller. As Helen's work progressed, she ultimately developed the tr
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating 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.
This poem is in the public domain.
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