Lucy Gray by William Wordsworth - Explanation
The poet mentions a girl named Lucy about whom he has heard from various sources. She is a mysterious character who resides alone in the woods. When the poet crosses the woods at the end of the day, he sees a mysterious figure there. It is not mentioned who is this Lucy and how can she survive in the forest on her own.
She has no friends and no one to give company to her. According to the narrator, she dwells "on a wide moor". He calls this residing "the sweetest thing that ever grew/ Beside a human door", perhaps because of nature's association and we know how much Wordsworth loves nature.
It is difficult to discover Lucy in comparison to fawns (young deer) and hares which roam in the green surroundings. We don't know at this point that why her face "will never more be seen".
In the next stanza, we get to travel back to the story of this girl. Her father asks her to go to town to accompany her mother. He hurriedly tells her to take the lantern with her as it would be "stormy night" that day.
She, like an obedient daughter act upon her father's diktat. She discovers that it's barely afternoon and the moon is already visible in the sky. The father doesn't care about the strange weather that day and keeps himself busy in his work. She goes on with her journey.
The girl takes his visit with her childlike manner like other children. She plays with snow with her feet "dispersing the powdery snow" in the air. Snow is compared to smoke (Simile). The uncertain storm comes at the time earlier than expected. Despite trying to save her life, she couldn't reach the town and became the prey of the blizzard (snowstorm).
The worried parents searched throughout the night, shouting her name but to no avail. There was total silence with nothing to guide them to their daughter. Next day in the dawn, from a hill, They could see "the bridge of wood/ a furlong (220 yards) from their door."
Now they come to realise that their precious daughter is no more and they bid her farewell and resolve to meet her in the heaven. Lucy's mother still sceptical of her death, search Lucy's footsteps in the snow if she could find her again.
When they began to descend from the hill, they follow small footsteps, allegedly of Lucy from certain shrub-hedge and "long stone-wall".
Tracking those little footsteps, they come across the open field and hold on to it and reach a bridge. They could trace the footsteps to the middle of bridge planks and then it fades away.
But still, some people believe that she is alive and lives a solitary life in the wild. She treads on both rough and smooth paths and she never looks behind. Along her way, she sings "a solitary song" that creates a whistle sound in the air.
The poem employs the rhyme scheme of abab throughout the poem.
She has no friends and no one to give company to her. According to the narrator, she dwells "on a wide moor". He calls this residing "the sweetest thing that ever grew/ Beside a human door", perhaps because of nature's association and we know how much Wordsworth loves nature.
It is difficult to discover Lucy in comparison to fawns (young deer) and hares which roam in the green surroundings. We don't know at this point that why her face "will never more be seen".
In the next stanza, we get to travel back to the story of this girl. Her father asks her to go to town to accompany her mother. He hurriedly tells her to take the lantern with her as it would be "stormy night" that day.
She, like an obedient daughter act upon her father's diktat. She discovers that it's barely afternoon and the moon is already visible in the sky. The father doesn't care about the strange weather that day and keeps himself busy in his work. She goes on with her journey.
The girl takes his visit with her childlike manner like other children. She plays with snow with her feet "dispersing the powdery snow" in the air. Snow is compared to smoke (Simile). The uncertain storm comes at the time earlier than expected. Despite trying to save her life, she couldn't reach the town and became the prey of the blizzard (snowstorm).
The worried parents searched throughout the night, shouting her name but to no avail. There was total silence with nothing to guide them to their daughter. Next day in the dawn, from a hill, They could see "the bridge of wood/ a furlong (220 yards) from their door."
Now they come to realise that their precious daughter is no more and they bid her farewell and resolve to meet her in the heaven. Lucy's mother still sceptical of her death, search Lucy's footsteps in the snow if she could find her again.
When they began to descend from the hill, they follow small footsteps, allegedly of Lucy from certain shrub-hedge and "long stone-wall".
Tracking those little footsteps, they come across the open field and hold on to it and reach a bridge. They could trace the footsteps to the middle of bridge planks and then it fades away.
But still, some people believe that she is alive and lives a solitary life in the wild. She treads on both rough and smooth paths and she never looks behind. Along her way, she sings "a solitary song" that creates a whistle sound in the air.
The poem employs the rhyme scheme of abab throughout the poem.