The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

58 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

31–34: a 6 bb 8 a 6

35–38: aabb 8

39–44: aa 10 bbcc 8

45–50: aabb 8 c 10 c 12

51–54: abab 8

55– 60: aabb 8 cc 10

61– 66: aabccb 8

67–70: aabb 8

The poem may be ludicrous, as Robinson surely intended it to be, but

it does show Robinson more carefully constructing formal variation

than she does, say, in her supposedly improvisational composition of

“To Him Who Will Understand It.” She will perform similar metri-

cal gymnastics in her subsequent odes, including her final ode “To

the Poet Coleridge.” But it is important that we see her doing what

Della Crusca and Anna Matilda had been doing in their exchange but

doing so more deliberately and with wilder variations. This formal

experimentation, as we will see throughout this study, is essential

to Robinson’s poetic skill and will continue to be a hallmark of her

professional and literary networking.

As one might expect, Laura’s address to Anna Matilda is mischie-

vous and downright catty. In disabusing her of Della Crusca’s infidel-

ity, Laura suggests that Anna Matilda has the power to bewitch him

and thus to “ravish thence / The wond’ring Poet’s captive Sense” (1:

57; 3–4). Laura urges Anna Matilda to “dispel thy fears” and to “quit

thy rosy- pillow’d bed” (7, 9), referring to her angry rejoinder to Della

Crusca, in which she promises to retreat scornfully from poetry to her

couch, where “The freshest Rose- leaves for my head / Shall form a

blushing scented Bed” (World 26 February 1789). Laura disingenu-

ously encourages her, “round thy polish’d brow, th’ unfading Myrtle

twine” (12), in response to Anna Matilda’s previous renunciation of

the myrtle, which she calls “Love’s devoted Tree” and which “Shall

ne’er unfold its od’rous Boughs.” In other words, Laura is happy to

return Della Crusca to his original lover, but she denies Anna Matilda

the laurel wreath. She goes on to deny that Della Crusca was ever

enamored of her poetry: “No Verse of Mine, his Song inspir’d” (23).

But before doing so, she ludicrously portrays Anna Matilda as a poten-

tial murderess, urging her not to succumb to revenge and jealousy,

personified as a hideous Medusa.

Subdue the haggard Witch, whose em’rald eye,

Darts fell REVENGE, and pois’nous JEALOUSY;

9780230100251_03_ch01.indd 589780230100251_03_ch01.indd 58 12/31/2010 4:20:16 PM12/31/2010 4:20:16 PM

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

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