Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This poem seems to me about building a paradise that the author wishes to live in. He also goes into great detail of how it would look which to me means it someplace dear to his heart he wrote:

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

And folding sunny posts of greenery.

After reading his biography I would venture to say that he was heavily into his addiction when he wrote this poem. To me this place that he wants to build this “palace” is a refuge in his mind, a place he can go to escape the world in which he lives. He was not happy with himself or his addiction; it cost him many relationships and took a huge toll on his health. This idyllic place in his mind would have been a paradise or as he himself describes a “Xanadu”. I think we all have a place we go in our minds to escape the world around us sometimes. Memories of our past, or places we wish to visit. It is ironic that in his induced drug addiction, he was able to see something so beautiful.