She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

William Wordsworth is one of the most famous poets in the history of poetry. Born in Cumberland, England, Wordsworth was known for his ideas of the importance of the relationship between nature and man. Wordsworth also was notorious for the political ideas he buried in his poetry. He was and continues to be one of the most critically acclaimed poets not only of his time but of all time.

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

         Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

         And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

         Half hidden from the eye!

—Fair as a star, when only one

         Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

         When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

         The difference to me!

In this unit we are currently studying about the speaker in poetry, Wordsworth gives a great example of the emotion and feelings the audience can feel when it feeds off the speaker. This poem leaves more questions open than answered, though the audience is aware of the final conclusion: the death of Lucy and the grief the speaker is trying to articulate as a result. The audience knows very little about Lucy. We know her name, that she lived a rather lonely life, and that she was very important to the few people who knew her, namely the speaker. The lack of detail here also helps to support the fact that "There were none to praise and very few to love" Lucy and "few could know when Lucy ceased to be." Based off these details, or lack thereof, the audience could be led to believe that the speaker of the poem may have been one of the many who didn't know her very well. But in the last two stanzas, we see a transition where the speaker almost begins to vent his feelings about her and the grief he feels because of her death. While there is no indication the speaker is in fact male, the audience gets the impression (and assumes, since Wordsworth is a man) that the speaker loved Lucy very much and still loves her even after her death. The rhyme scheme gives the poem a romantic feel, that maybe the speaker has written this to Lucy for both closure and the opportunity to tell her how he really felt if he was never able to do so while she was alive.