Three Years She Grew
------ By William Wordsworth
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.
"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.
"The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.
"The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.
"And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell."
Thus Nature spake—The work was done—
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.
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Three years she grew in sun and shower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Three years she grew in sun and shower" is a poem composed in 1798 by the English poet William Wordsworth, and first published in the Lyrical Ballads anthology which was co-written with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As one of the five poems that make up the "Lucy series", the work describes the relationship between Lucy and nature using words and sentiments. The author creates an indifference of nature as the poem progresses. The care in which Nature had sculpted Lucy, and then casually let her "race end," depicts Wordworths' view upon the harsh reality of life. Although Nature is indifferent, it also cares for Lucy enough to both sculpt and mould her into its own. Wordsworth valued connections to nature above all else. The poem thus contains both epithalamic and elegiac characteristics; the marriage described is between Lucy and nature, while her human lover is left to mourn in the knowledge that death has separated her from mankind, and she will forever now be with nature.[1]
Notes
Grob 1973, 202–203
Bibliography
Eilenberg, Susan. Strange Power of Speech: Wordsworth, Coleridge and Literary Possession. Oxford University Press USA, 1992. ISBN 0-19-506856-4
Grob, Alan. The Philosophic Mind: A Study of Wordsworth's Poetry and Thought 1797–1805. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1973. ISBN 0-8142-0178-4
Jones, Mark. The 'Lucy Poems': A Case Study in Literary Knowledge. Toronto:The University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8020-0434-2
External links
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Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
Biography and Works of William Wordsworth