In reading Kubla Khan the first thing that came to mind was my favorite band: The Beatles. This entire poem seems like Coleridge's personal magical mystery tour.
Further research indicates that this poem's author claims that it was written in an opium-induced stupor. Well that certainly explains some of the imagery that Coleridge conjures up in these lines.
I want to focus on the imaginative aspects of this poem. From the beginning, Coleridge describes this glorious place of wonder and beauty, using especially descriptive language to do so ("gardens bright with sinuous rills", "enfolding sunny spots of greenery"). This rich, evocative language helps the reader to try and visualize the types of things that were going on in the mind of Coleridge while his mind wandered off into another world. To be frank, though, I had a hard time really visualizing what he was describing.
That other aspect I want to discuss briefly is this "pleasure dome." While the majority of the descriptive language is in reference to natural components of nature such as rivers or trees, the pleasure dome receives similar adoration. It is interesting that the author chose to juxtapose the traditional "nature" with what is ostensibly a human artifice but still treat them as one in the same. It is as though the profound meaning of this drug-induced dream is that while human creation may clash at first with the true nature, over time they can become one in the same.
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