236 The Poetry of Mary Robinsonmuse. Eventually Coleridge enjoyed performing the poem for other
poets whom he felt might appreciate its eccentricities, chanting it to
emphasize the musicality of its metrical effects. Charles Lamb wrote
to Word s wor t h i n A pr i l of 1816 , t he mont h b e fore it a pp e a re d i n pr i nt ,
that Coleridge performed the poem “so enchantingly that it irradi-
ates and brings heaven and Elysian bowers into my parlour while he
sings or says it” (3: 215). And obviously Byron heard it too. As Leigh
Hunt later recalled, “He recited his ‘Kubla Khan,’ one morning, to
L ord Byron, in h is L ordsh ip’s house in Piccad illy, when I happened to
be in another room. I remember the other’s coming away from him,
highly struck with his poem, and saying how wonderfully he talked”
(Lord Byron 2: 53). But this is many years later. It is not clear whether
Robinson read the poem in manuscript or heard Coleridge recite it
for her. If the date on the poem in the 1801 Memoirs is accurate, he
must have mailed her a copy of the poem after bidding her farewell in
London, which would explain the accuracy of her quotations.
But the poem is also doubly attributed in the Memoirs. The title
there is “Mrs. Robinson to the Poet Coleridge,” but the poem is
signed “Sappho.” This suggests that Robinson did apply the signa-
tures to the poems she sent to Stuart for publication in the Morning
Post. For some reason, this poem did not find its way to Stuart. In
the context of the Memoirs, the signature strengthens the affiliation
between Robinson and the Greek poet and affirms Robinson’s status
as the English Sappho; but its placement among the tributary poems
to Robinson and her occasional replies also underscores Robinson’s
place among the amorous poetic correspondences initiated and
inspired by the Della Crusca network. There, “Mrs. Robinson to the
Poet Coleridge” follows Coleridge’s “A Stranger Minstrel” and fixes
Coleridge as one of many poetical admirers paying court to Robinson
and her various avatars, Laura and Sappho chief among them. These
two poems are framed by a tribute by Rev. William Tasker that praises
R obi nson a s “Sweet SAPPHO OF OUR ISLE” and another by John Taylor
that addresses her as “dearest LAUR A” (Memoirs 4: 140, 150). Merry,
too, is among the parade of poetic paramours; without disavow-
ing his much- maligned alter ego, the editor identifies him as “the
late Robert Merry, Esq., Member of the Academy Della Crusca at
Florence” (110). This kind of erotic subordination to Robinson and
the unsavory association of himself with Taylor, Wolcot, and Merry is
what mortified Coleridge as much as the unauthorized publication of
his poem—as his letter to Maria Elizabeth indicates.
Moreover, reading “Kubla Khan” as part of a ludic quasi- erotic
exchange with Robinson requires that we remove the film of9780230100251_07_ch05.indd 2369780230100251_07_ch05.indd 236 12/28/2010 11:09:06 AM12/28/2010 11:09:06 AM
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