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Astral Codex Ten Podcast


Jul 27, 2018

The Tourist Board of Xanadu
Did recently impose a fee
On those who travel far from home
To visit Kubla’s pleasure dome
Of $20, 9 – 3

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With fence and wire are girdled round
And signs proclaiming “ENTRY AT THE GATE”
Where gather many a camera-bearing crowd
And here are docents, who in solemn state
Explain the Mongol histories aloud

But oh! That deep romantic chasm protracting
Into a hill, athwart a cedarn cover
A savage region, visitors attracting
By actresses, forever reenacting
A woman wailing to her demon-lover

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil spilling
Crowds of old men in fat thick pants are milling
And there, a fountain momently is forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Groups of eight to ten people, screaming ever
White-water-raft upon the sacred river