I like Wordsworth’s poetry (that isn’t exactly a hot take), but I think the beauty in his lines informs me that romantic poetry, and poets with as strong a voice as Wordsworth, are remembered for a reason. The poem I am featuring today is a lovely one titled “She dwelt among the untrodden ways,” and it details a girl named Lucy, a maid, who Wordsworth was in love with but who had died at a young age. We can see this as an “elegy” or an “elegiac poem,” as it is a poem in remembrance of someone.
As poemanalysis.com states of the verse: “The poem celebrates a girl by associating her to nature with straightforward language and emphasizing on emotional expression. Moreover, it is s short lyric form that concerns rural life.”
I have this poem in a bedside poetry handbook that I read every once in a while, because it has a great impact on my senses (similar to “Oread” by H.D.). I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
“She dwelt among the untrodden ways” by William Wordsworth
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!
Pocket Book of Poetry | Fall River Press
