Poetry & Analysis
Selected Abstract Poems
Inspirational PoemsKubla Khan
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 blossom’d 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!
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:
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,
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!
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!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play’d,
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.
Overview Short Summary
The poem presents a dreamlike kingdom, a sacred river, a pleasure-dome, caves of ice, and a visionary singer. It is one of the strongest classic examples of abstract poetry because meaning comes through atmosphere, sound, and symbolic images.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Imagination: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Dream vision: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Creation and artistic power: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is visionary and mysterious. The mood shifts between wonder, danger, and supernatural intensity.
Close Reading Explanation
Part 1
The first section builds the strange landscape of Xanadu through rich visual imagery.
Part 2
The second section introduces a violent chasm and sacred river, suggesting creative energy beneath beauty.
Part 3
The final section turns toward the poet’s desire to recreate the vision through music and imagination.
Craft Literary Devices
Coleridge uses dream imagery, alliteration, contrast, and symbolism. The pleasure-dome and caves of ice create an abstract picture of artistic imagination.
The Brain is Wider than the Sky
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
Overview Short Summary
Dickinson compares the human brain to the sky, sea, and God. The poem turns thought itself into an abstract measure of vastness.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Consciousness: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Imagination: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Mind and infinity: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is calm, bold, and philosophical. The mood is expansive because the mind seems larger than physical space.
Close Reading Explanation
Part 1
The first stanza compares the brain to the sky and suggests the mind can contain the world it observes.
Part 2
The second stanza deepens the comparison by placing the brain beside the sea.
Part 3
The final stanza makes the most abstract comparison, weighing the brain against God through sound and syllable.
Craft Literary Devices
The poem uses extended comparison, paradox, and abstraction. The sky and sea become measures of inner consciousness.
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down—
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing—then—
Overview Short Summary
Dickinson describes mental collapse as if a funeral is happening inside the brain. The poem is abstract because it makes psychological experience feel like sound, weight, space, and falling.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Mental distress: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Inner experience: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Reason and collapse: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is intense and claustrophobic. The mood grows more unstable as the speaker moves from sound to falling and unfinished knowledge.
Close Reading Explanation
Part 1
The first stanzas turn thought into a funeral ritual, with mourners and a beating service.
Part 2
The middle stanzas expand the speaker’s mind into cosmic sound and isolation.
Part 3
The final stanza shows reason breaking like a plank, ending in a suspended moment of lost knowing.
Craft Literary Devices
Dickinson uses metaphor, repetition, auditory imagery, and abstraction. The funeral is not literal; it symbolizes a crisis inside consciousness.
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.
Overview Short Summary
The poem imagines the soul as a private power that chooses its own circle and closes itself against the rest of the world.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Selfhood: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Choice and privacy: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Inner authority: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is firm and dignified. The mood is quiet but powerful because the soul’s decision feels absolute.
Close Reading Explanation
Part 1
The first stanza shows the soul choosing and closing the door.
Part 2
The second stanza shows that public power cannot move the soul once it has decided.
Part 3
The final stanza presents attention as something that can close like stone.
Craft Literary Devices
The soul is personified as a chooser and gatekeeper. Dickinson also uses contrast between public greatness and inward authority.
This World is Not Conclusion
This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond,
Invisible, as music,
But positive, as sound.
It beckons and it baffles;
Philosophies don’t know,
And through a riddle, at the last,
Sagacity must go.
To guess it puzzles scholars;
To gain it, men have shown
Contempt of generations,
And crucifixion known.
Faith slips, and laughs, and rallies,
Blushes, if any see;
Plucks at a twig of evidence,
And asks a vane the way.
Much gesture from the pulpit,
Strong hallelujahs roll;
Narcotics cannot still the tooth
That nibbles at the soul.
Overview Short Summary
Dickinson reflects on the mystery of what lies beyond this world. The poem gives abstract doubt, faith, and longing physical movement and sound.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Faith and doubt: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Afterlife: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
- Mystery: This theme shapes the poem’s abstract meaning and helps readers understand the symbolic movement of the poem.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is questioning and restless. The mood is spiritual but uneasy because belief and uncertainty keep struggling together.
Close Reading Explanation
Part 1
The first stanza says that existence has a sequel, but that sequel remains invisible and baffling.
Part 2
The second stanza shows faith as unstable, searching for small signs and still troubled by inner pain.
Craft Literary Devices
The poem uses paradox, personification, and metaphor. Faith acts like a living figure, and doubt becomes a “tooth” nibbling at the soul.
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