Lucy Poems by William Wordsworth: An Analysis

Romantic age has produced a number of poets and writers. Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley are the hallmarks of this movement. William Wordsworth stands above them all because his poems are equally popular among the critics and the readers. Every reader of English poetry knows that Wordsworth was an ardent lover of nature and its shifting phenomena like the clouds, moon and winds. Man is the central theme in most of his poems because he considers man as the best masterpiece of nature.

Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 - April, 23, 1850) was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland in the Lake district of England. He and his sister Dorothy used to play on the bank of the Derwent River. Since childhood, he was much impressed by the sunlight reflecting through its waters. He loved and married Annette Vallon and in turn, nature gifted them with a daughter Caroline.

Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote ‘Lyrical Ballads’, published in 1798, comprising on 23 poems out of which 19 were the outcome of Wordsworth’s imagination.

In preface to the ‘Lyrical Ballads’, Wordsworth calls a set of five poems as ‘Lucy Poems’ (1798-1801) in which he shows his deep feelings of love for a pretty girl ‘Lucy’. Out of five, four poems were published in the first edition whereas one came in the second edition of ‘Lyrical Ballads’.

Lucy’s identity is still uncovered like an unmapped river. No one knows who Lucy was. Above all, the writer and his poems are quite silent on this enigma. However, different critics hold different speculations about the true figure of Lucy.

Some critics think that she is an imaginary character whereas some others opine that she is William’s daughter. Some speculate that she is his sister and few moot that she is Wordsworth’s beloved. Nevertheless, critics’ opinion varies according to the context of the poem under discussion.

‘Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known’ is one of the earliest poems in which Wordsworth seems more passionate towards Lucy. He is on his way to her home and he apprehends that Lucy might not have dead since he has seen moon sinking behind her little cottage. Perhaps, he sees Lucy’s image in the moon and the sinking moon produces pangs of pain in his heart. He at once says in that state of melancholy;

“What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a Lover's head!

“O Mercy!” to myself I cried,

“If Lucy should be dead!”

Flowers bloom in June in England. Spring endows a new life to every holt and heath. Mature sun shines and everything looks bright. Hence, Wordsworth’s heart goes wild and he praises her beauty in similar terms;

“When she I loved looked every day

Fresh as a rose in June.”

The idea of Lucy’s death is recurrent in Lucy poems. In ‘Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known’, he shows his concerns about her death but we see Lucy is actually dead in ‘She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways’. The readers can well understand lover’s pathetic feelings on beloved’s death through the following lines;

“But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!”

She was the sweetheart of Wordsworth whom he has decorated in the verses of his poetry and; thus, made her immortal. She was the apple of William’s eye;

“A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love.”

Lucy was cute and innocent like a flower and her sparkling eyes were like twinkling stars. Wordsworth left no stone unturned in expressing the charm and fascination of his beloved. He brings startling similes and amazing metaphors together in order to accelerate the overall impact of her loveliness.

“A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.”

“I Traveled Among Unknown Men” is a record of Wordsworth’s love for his country. There will be no fear of contradiction if we claim that he loves England for its natural scenery where Lucy had played.

“Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.”

During Romantic age, England had a series of conflicts with its neighbour ‘France’. Wordsworth had to leave for France for a specific period of time. There, he remembered the time he passed among the leaves, grass and bowers of England. He expresses those experiences with heavy heart.

“Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.”

Wordsworth is best known as a poet of nature who saw the image of God within the beauties of nature e.g., Pantheism. He appears to be a mystic poet on the ground of his concept of Pantheism. He calls nature a nurse which heals, a teacher that guides and a mother that fosters.

In ‘Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower’, Wordsworth calls nature a foster mother who is ready to take Lucy in its lap and it will bring her up in its natural surroundings;

“She shall be sportive as the fawn

That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs.”

Different phenomena of nature will contribute to endow Lucy a life of delight and calm. Floating clouds and storms will mould her form. Midnight stars and rivulets will endue glow to her face. Trembling blossoms and waving flowers will add to her height.

“Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell.”

Nature did its best in bringing up Lucy accordingly. Lucy lived in delightful and delicious milieu and years passed by. Then suddenly time approached when Wordsworth realized;

“How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene.”

‘A Slumber did My Spirit Seal’ is William’s maturest poem in which he feels the fear of Lucy’s death no more because she is dead long before. William proclaims that her death has set him free from the worries of this world. However, his frets have transformed into pathos.

“No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees.”

To cut the matter short, we may say that Wordsworth was a great poet of Romantic age. He personifies nature through the character of Lucy. Every reader of Lucy poems cannot help appreciating his exquisite way of expression.