Lucy Gray

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:

And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
–The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
"To-night will be a stormy night–
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."
"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon–
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!"
At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work; –and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.
Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.
The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.
At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.
They wept–and, turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet;"
–When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.
Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;
And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the Bridge they came.
They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!
–Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.
[1799]
 Lucy Gray
Oft I/ had heard/ of Lu/cy Gray:
And, when/ I crossed / the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, / no com/ rade Lu/ cy knew;
She dwelt/ on a / wide moor,
–The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
"To-night will be a stormy night–
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."
"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon–
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!"
At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work; –and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.
Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.
The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.
They wept–and, turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet;"
–When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.
Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;
And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the Bridge they came.
They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!
–Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.
[1799]
Theme, Diction, Tone (Lexical-thematic dimension):

● Theme: Alternate title “Solitude”

● Quiet life and death of a young girl on a wide moor
● In life and death Lucy is in harmony with Nature – Theme of
man and Nature as one – Pantheism – in the end Nature enfolds
human soul after death – happily tripping along the snowy
wilderness
● Wordsworth strayed from actual story – romantic
● Not to be confused with Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy Poems’
● Voice or speaker: Narrator appears to be the poet himself –
intermittent dialogue between father and daughter
● Diction: with the theme the simple life of Lucy Gray – line 25
“blither” meaning happier – the only uncommon usage –
slightly archaic – vocabulary from the middle ages
● Rhetorical figures:
Simile: line 27-28: powdery snow rising up like smoke
Metaphor: Second stanza compared to a flower
Day break – metaphor for dawning of
realisation
fawn, hare, mountain roe - implicit
Imagery: simple landscape of the moor – snow storm – fear
evoking thorny hawthorn hedge, stony walls -
nature
Symbolism: “the Bridge” – between life and death
Alliteration: “you yet may spy the fawn at play” (line 9) “at this
 the father” (line 21) “And sings a solitary song/
that
whistles in the wind (lines 63-64) sound /s/ and
/w/
together almost recreates the whistling sound.
● Tone: sad yet not melodramatic or into melancholia instead a
sense of hope by living in harmony with nature and giving
nature an important place in one’s life one can achieve
happiness in after life too
Visual dimension
● 16 stanzas of equal length
● 4 line stanzas (feature of ballad)
Rhythmic-Acoustic dimension
● Metre: Iambic tetrameter lines ( ˇ ˈ/ ˇ ˈ/ ˇ ˈ/ ˇ ˈ) alternated by
iambic trimeter lines ( ˇ ˈ/ ˇ ˈ/ ˇ ˈ) a feature of ballads
● Rhyme scheme a-b-a-b (feature of ballad)
● Eye rhymes in –behind-wind (stanza 16)
● Imperfect rhyme crossed-lost (stanza 13)
“Lucy Gray” as a ballad:
1. A poem written in imitation of the folk-ballad
2. a narrative poem – sometimes folktales - popular
3. Simple language and free flow of feelings
4. Meant to be songlike
5. Arranged in quatrains
6. Rhyme scheme a-b-a-b
 7. Usually iambic
8. Some have refrains - repetitions – 7 stanzas refer to Lucy by
name
9. Dialogues in between
10.Supernatural element
Features of Romanticism
● A perfect example of Wordsworth’s style of romantic poetry
● Celebration of Nature
● Obsession with feelings and passion
● Enamoured by mysticism and the supernatural
● Preference for Imagination over Reason/Logic
● Discarding of highbrow language and display of scholarship

Wordsworth’s Lucy Poems

The poet’s love for a young woman who died young – a lover rather
than a child – all about the pain caused by the loss – a real woman? A
fictional character – some critics say a meshing together of many
women (hybrid character) in his life, including his sister Dorothy
1. “Strange Fits of Passion have I Known”
2. “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways”
3. “I Travelled among Unknown Men”
4. “Three Years she Grew in Sun and Shower”
5. “A Slumber did My Spirit Seal”