She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways

A key tenet of Wordsworth’s Romanticism held that it was necessary to write about ordinary life. Narratives centering on the common man and the beauty of nature were preferable to lofty subject matter. While the Lucy poems paint the undefined female character as mysterious and mythic, they are firmly grounded in a natural and realistic locale, “besides the springs of Dove” (Line 2). Three rivers called Dove exist in England (in Derbyshire, Westmorland, and Yorkshire), and several streams have this name as well. Thus, the location would have conjured the English countryside for Wordsworth’s reader; the blooming flower suggests that it is early spring.

The image of water bubbling up from an underground source metaphorically connects with Wordsworth’s famous idea that good poems must rely on the “spontaneous overflow of feeling” (See: Further Reading & Resources). This interred movement suggests that, despite Lucy being dead and “in her grave” (Line 11), her memory revives the environment and nourishes the natural surroundings. While Lucy is now physically gone, the imaginative echo of her memory springs up everywhere.