The poem of “Kubla Khan,” which Coleridge has termed a psychological curiosity, had its origin in the excitement of opium, a spinning out of a theme in “Purchas’ Pilgrim,” which he had been reading: it is an effort of the poet in recording the wild images which had been before presented to the mind’s eye of the enthusiast,—the impression, indeed, of the pleasures and the pains of memory.
POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY.
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth—from earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation, and a name.”
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Astr. Is there so potent a charm in poppies, Evelyn? You will make us believe, soon, that opium can make a Shakspere, that genius can be imparted by a drug.