WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: "THE EDUCATION OF NATURE": LUCY POEMS

2016-16  William Wordsworth: "The Education of Nature": Lucy Poems

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

William Wordsworth [1770-1850] 

British poet, credited with ushering in the English Romantic Movement with the publication of Lyrical Ballads(1798) in collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

"Three years she grew in sun and shower", also known as "The Education of Nature", was composed in 1798 by William Wordsworth, and published in the Lyrical Ballads. 

It is one of the five poems that make up the "Lucy Poems". We shall see below two of these.

The Education of Nature: Lucy Poems

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.

YouTube Video: "Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower": [Click Here]

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways: Lucy Poems

                BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

         Beside the springs of Dove,

    A Maid whom there were none to praise

         And very few to love:

 

        A violet by a mossy stone

              Half hidden from the eye!

       —Fair as a star, when only one

              Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

         When Lucy ceased to be;

    But she is in her grave, and, oh,

         The difference to me!

YouTube Video: "She dwelt among the untrodden ways": [Click Here]