Kublai Khan was completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kublai Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816. The poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium influenced dream after reading a work describing the Tartar king Kublai Khan. Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted. The poem is illustrated by Maxfield Parrish's Waterfall.