Verses Composed Upon Reading A Review From TripAdvisor

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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 to 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

Five miles continuing to a crashing climax
Through wood and dale the sacred waters run;
I didn’t think this part was too much fun,
So skip the crowds, and head down to the IMAX,
Where in surround-sound, you can hear from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Stands reflected in the mere;
Take some photos there to treasure
As a special souvenir
It is a miracle of rare device:
A tourist trap, but also pretty nice.

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!
Hide the sight from eyes profane,
And weave a circle round him thrice
For he hath tasted Paradise,
5/5, would taste again.