RAPT in the visionary theme!
SPIRIT DIVINE! with THEE I'll wander,
Where the blue, wavy, lucid stream,
'Mid forest glooms, shall slow meander!
With THEE I'll trace the circling bounds
Of thy NEW PARADISE extended;
And listen to the varying sounds
Of winds, and foamy torrents blended.
Now by the source which lab'ring heaves
The mystic fountain, bubbling, panting,
While Gossamer its net-work weaves,
Adown the blue lawn slanting!
I'll mark thy sunny dome, and view
Thy Caves of Ice, thy fields of dew!
Thy ever-blooming mead, whose flow'r
Coleridge loved Mary Robinson’s work and reviewed it with great detail. He actually wrote a letter to her daughter after Robinson died, saying, “Your dear Mother is more present to my eyes, than the paper on which I am writing–which indeed swims before my sight–for I can not think of your Mother without Tears” This was written two years after Robinson had passed away. Connecting Mary Robinson with Coleridge is essential because of the influence they both had in each other’s work. She had lived her entire life in the shadow of gossip and verbal abuse. Coleridge was portraying himself to the grieving daughter as a protector of her mother’s reputation.
To the Poet Coleridge