ABSTRACT
Much has been said about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mary Robinson's poetic exchanges written during their time at The Morning Post, especially Robinson's response to Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" in "Mrs. Robinson to the Poet Coleridge". Their dialogue commenced, however, even before their first explicit exchange at the end of 1797, as they became aware of each other's presence as poets with shared aesthetic and political sensibilities. One of their earliest explicit poetic exchanges occurs in their snowdrop poems, which employ the conventional poetic image of the flower for its associations with the victimized female and with poetry. Coleridge's "Apotheosis" provides exactly the sympathizing response that Robinson's poem demands; it creates complex lyrical exchange that revises her poem and reveals the poets' shared sensibility. Their poems are revisions of Robert Burns's "To a Mountain Daisy". Coleridge was aware of the harp's significance in Della Cruscan poetry, as he sought to revise its significance in changing "Effusion XXXV" to "The Eolian Harp".
