Alph

She had once thought those lines referred to the river Axe, the sacred river that ran through the subterranean chambers and caverns and stalactites of the Cheddar gorge, but she now saw that the Alph of Xanadu was the Severn, and that the sunless sea was Coleridge's prophetic vision of the pewter post-nuclear wasteland of this estuary, spreading out westwards in the post-nuclear future towards the metallic fish-free Atlantic.

Margaret Drabble | Trespassing 2011

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea … EDF, of course, was engaged in that characteristically twenty-first century French endeavour, the development of nuclear power.

Margaret Drabble | Trespassing 2011

There was no sacred River Alph, only a trickle on the largely dried-up bed of a stream.

When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts 2010

There was no sacred River Alph, only a trickle on the largely dried-up bed of a stream.

When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts 2010

There was no sacred River Alph, only a trickle on the largely dried-up bed of a stream.

When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts 2010

Coleridge says that Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man.

THE ANTHOLOGIST Nicholson Baker 2009

Coleridge says that Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man.

THE ANTHOLOGIST Nicholson Baker 2009

Just proves that more than one blogger is denser than depleted uranium, Alph.

Media Matters doesn't understand the word "despite." Ann Althouse 2009

Alph - "We Won" is not a solicitation for ideas from the minority party.

Why not put people to work by paying them to water their own lawns? Ann Althouse 2009

You can put lipstick on Alph and he's still a loon.

Gary Hart: "If a majority of voters... think that it is cute to have a moose-hunting hockey mom run the country, then that's what we'll get." Ann Althouse 2008