The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

218 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

employ internal rhymes, similar to some of the stanzas in “The R ime

of the Ancyent Marinere.” Meanwhile, the shorter second and fifth

lines envelop these pairs of internally rhyming lines with augmented

rhymes. This is all at work in the twelfth stanza, which is the one

Coleridge singled out for praise:

Pale Moon! thou Spectre of the Sky!

I see thy white shroud waving:

And now, behold thy bosom cold—

Oh! Memory sad! it made me mad!

Then wherefore mock my raving? (2: 47; 56–60)

Most of the poem is the maniacal Jasper’s frenzied apostrophe to

the various elements of nature that he sees as mocking his guilt and

sorrow over the death of his beloved Mary (no relation to “The Poor

Singing Dame”). Despite the madness of the speaker, the poem

maintains its regularity, creating a fixed sense of confinement that

perhaps makes Jasper’s raving seem all the more frustrated until his

final suicidal plunge into a nearby river. Although there is metrical

method to her portrayal of Jasper’s madness, Robinson thus finally

makes Jasper a male Ophelia.

Because of Robinson’s innovative use of meter in the service of her

narrative, even without Coleridge’s pleading on her behalf, Southey

likely would have found a place for Robinson’s work among the other

narrative poems in the second volume of the Annual Anthology,

including his own “St. Juan Gualberto” and “The Battle of Blenheim.”

Southey got the idea for his anthology from William Taylor, who told

him about similar “Almanacks” published recently in Germany and

edited by the likes of Schiller and Bürger. As we saw in chapter four,

Southey saw the anthology as a way of preserving poems of his own

that he considered “too good to perish with the newspapers in which

they are printed” (Robberds 1: 239). In collecting and publishing

others’ poems alongside his own, Southey depended upon the repu-

tations of his contributors to promote sales and to promote his own

work. In addition to Robinson, Southey enlisted Coleridge, Amelia

Opie, Charles Lloyd, and Joseph Cottle, among those whose names

would help sell the book. Southey put his name to only a couple of the

poems; the other contributions were anonymous or pseudonymous.

But Robinson was the most illustrious writer of the group, and her

fame would have been a selling point for Southey as he determined

which authors to include.

Coleridge likewise was looking out for Robinson’s preservation

in the Annual Anthology. He felt that “The Haunted Beach” was

9780230100251_07_ch05.indd 2189780230100251_07_ch05.indd 218 12/28/2010 11:09:04 AM12/28/2010 11:09:04 AM

10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel Robinson

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