The words used to describe the movement of water.

Coleridge defines the natural flow and movement of water through various evocative words. The poet attempts to visualize the river rushing down the hillside “momently” like a “fountain”: “A mighty fountain momently was forced.” He wants the readers to imagine the river as something that is recreated at every moment. The speaker also wants us to focus on the wild, ecstatic, vigorous excitement of the river. For the poet, the earth turns into a “seething”, “breathing” animal with the rushing water becoming the sound of its “fast thick pants” to evoke the sensation of a fatigued earth. In the lines, “And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever/ It flung up momently the sacred river”- the poet tries to make the readers visualize the river bouncing off the rocks. The meandering motion of the river is described in the words- “meander with a mazy motion”. Through the words- “Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,/ then reached the caverns measureless to man,/ And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean”, the poet visualizes the river as it rushes down a deep canyon and cuts into a wooden hillside. The river then flows gently through Xanadu and flattens out and turns into a proper, running river.