Kubla Khan In East Lansing

KUBLA KHAN IN EAST LANSING Not In East Lansing did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: But oh! that deep chasm which slanted Down the green hill east of town Was a savage place! Holy and enchanted And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A smould’ring sofa momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing pieces at once and ever And sank in tumult to a lifeless sidewalk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes (1) My thanks to Mr.Coleridge, whose lines are used here. (2) My apologies for extending my sofa trilogy ( q v ) into a quadrilogy, but once you’ve seen a burning sofa plunging earthward in East Lansing, you are a changed man, and can never forget.