“It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”
Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge 220
English poet, literary critic and philosopher 1772–1834Related quotes

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
Context: 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.
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!
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.

“It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness”
Source: Far from the Madding Crowd
Source: Drenai series, Quest for Lost Heroes, Ch. 1
Context: Gentlemen, you are in sorry condition. But war will render you yet more sorry. The soldier will fight in mud and hail, snow and ice, drought and flood. It is rare that a warrior gets to fight in comfort.

“The pleasures that give most joy are the ones that most rarely come.”
Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
Source: The Complete Poems

“Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.”
Fragment xi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments