Kubla Khan

This poem is really perplexing to me. I am not really sure how all the different situations relate to each other. The section: “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;” caught my attention. It seems to me that this woman is causing this sexual response from the earth. Immediately I thought of the story of Persephone, particularly the part where Hades bursts from a crack in the ground to abduct Persephone and take her back to the Underworld. Although Persephone was not wailing for Hades that way the woman in “Kubla Khan” the image of Hades bursting through the ground and the unnatural movement of the earth in the poem seem analogous. This small section made me think of another aspect of Persephone’s story. Her mother Demeter was so upset at the loss of her daughter she neglected her duty as protector of the Earth. This was how the Greeks understood the changing of the seasons: in the months where Persephone remained in the underworld, Demeter does not guard the land of Earth. In “Kubla Khan” the earth changes because of a woman’s actions in a supernatural way. This was just something else this particular section made me consider.