The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Stuart’s Laureates II 229

with the author himself as her guide: she cries, “SPIR IT DIVINE!

with THEE I’ll trace / Imagination’s boundless space!” (27–8). With

Coleridge, she follows the meandering sacred river (2–4); combing

the verdant hills, she spies the dome itself (9–26); beneath the sunny

dome, she explores the enchanted caves of ice (29–44); and in tribute,

she pauses to weave a crown of “wild- f low’rs” for the inspired and

inspiring poet (45–58). She awards him not a classical or Petrarchan

laurel but a specifically English accolade, the uncultivated f lowers a

sign of primitive, untouched nature and the genius it inspires. Like

“Kubla Khan,” Robinson’s poem also ends with the damsel singing

and playing her dulcimer, but here she reminds Coleridge of the sub-

stance of the damsel’s song, which, in “Kubla Khan,” he claims to

have forgotten:

And now, with lofty tones inviting,

Thy NYMPH, her dulcimer swift- smiting,

Shall wake me in extatic measures,

Far, far remov’d from mortal pleasures!

In cadence rich, in cadence strong,

Proving the wond’rous witcheries of song!

I hear her voice! thy “sunny dome,”

Thy “caves of ice,” aloud repeat,

Vibrations, madd’ning sweet!

Calling the visionary wand’rer home.

She sings of THEE, O! favour’d child

Of minstrelsy, SUBLIMELY WILD!

Of thee, whose soul can feel the tone

Which gives to airy dreams a MAGIC ALL THY OWN! (59–72)

“The nymph,” as Robinson calls her, sings of Coleridge specifi-

cally but also more generally of imagination, the universal poet who

has created both “Kubla Khan” and her poem. The last line echoes

Theseus’s speech on the poetic imagination from A Midsummer

Night’s Dream (5.1.14–7). Furthermore, the reference to Coleridge’s

“minstrelsy” strengthens the relationship between this poem and her

other ode, addressed to Derwent, in the latter poem’s sublime asso-

ciations between the poetic imagination and the geography of the

Lake District.

The conclusion emphasizes the formal link between Robinson’s

poem and “Kubla Khan.” She asserts that her own “extatic measures,”

literally “out of” the stasis of fixed form, prove “the wond’rous witcher-

ies of song!”; that is, the power of inspired, irregular metrical practice.

In this light, we can see that the most striking aspect of Robinson’s

9780230100251_07_ch05.indd 2299780230100251_07_ch05.indd 229 12/28/2010 11:09:06 AM12/28/2010 11:09:06 AM

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

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