There are those among us , Samuel , who deplore

your leaving your desk to answer, at your door ,

that Person from Porlock : one still to us unknown ,

who broke your thought with business of his own.

He held you there , as did the Ancient Mariner

Hold firm the Wedding Guest , unwilling listener .

Under a mundane spell of business to be done

he broke the web of fantasy you had spun ;

he was the albatross keeping you at his beck

for an hour at least , till you dropped from your neck

that Person from Porlock who had , by simple chance ,

woken you from your desk - bound opium trance.

And so the vision that had within you burned

to the deep subconscious well of thought returned ,

unfinished till your memory could restore

that maiden's voice whose singing promised more

than fragments of thought , just like the hail rebounding

through Kubla's caverns , sounding and resounding,

to regain the logic of the shattered story

to celebrate again that wondrous glory .

You clutched ... but with only small conviction--

at something that might bolster its prediction

of Kubla's voices prophesying war--

So you called this work a fragment , nothing more .

Then over the years came the struggle to devise

the work to a fuller , broader epic you'd revise .

but abandoned to publish at the enthused behest

of a lordly poet ; command more than request .

Could you not face it , Sam , that splendid vision

complete within itself , told with precision ?

But thinking of unjust critics' accusations

felt it needed some further explanations ?

Thank the Muse , dear Sam , you let it be

Leaving us with a poem about pure poetry.