My Empire was gone!
Ah Thou my Daitu, built of the nine precious substances!
Ah my Shangtu-Keibung, Union of all perfections!
Ah my Fame! Ah my Glory, as Khagan and Lord of the Earth!
When I used to awake betimes and look forth, how the breezes blew
loaded with fragrance!
And turn which way I would all was glorious perfection of beauty!
* * * * *
Alas for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World!
Alas for my Daitu, seat of Sanctity, Glorious work of the Immortal
KUBLAI!
All, all is rent from me!"
It was, in 1797, whilst reading this passage of Marco's narrative in old
Purchas that Coleridge fell asleep, and dreamt the dream of Kublai's
Paradise, beginning:
"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."
It would be a singular coincidence in relation to this poem were
Klaproth's reading correct of a passage in Rashiduddin which he renders as
saying that the palace at Kaiminfu was "called Langtin, and was built
after a plan that Kublai had seen in a dream, and had retained in his
memory." But I suspect D'Ohsson's reading is more accurate, which runs:
"Kublai caused a Palace to be built for him east of Kaipingfu, called
Lengten; but he abandoned it in consequence of a dream." For we see from
Sanang Setzen that the Palaces of Lengten and Kaiming or Shangtu were
distinct; "Between the year of the Rat (1264), when Kublai was fifty years
old, and the year of the Sheep (1271), in the space of eight years, he
built four great cities, viz.
