Read expert analysis on The Lucy Poems including alliteration, allusion, character analysis, historical context, and imagery at Owl Eyes

The poet compares Lucy to a star, and not just any star. He states that she is as beautiful as a solitary star in the sky. He is telling the reader that Lucy is uncommonly beautiful. The image of the single star also represents Lucy’s role as a muse.

The appearance of the moon earlier in the poem and its association with the idealized love object suggest a dreamy, imaginary atmosphere. This stanza confirms that the speaker’s journey is more figurative than literal. This tension between fantasy and reality is a key theme in the Lucy poems.

Read expert analysis on The Lucy Poems Three years she grew in sun and shower (The Education of Nature) at Owl Eyes

The speaker, addressing England itself, has returned home from travels abroad. The address to England is unique among the Lucy poems, which are otherwise addressed to an unknown audience. The speaker’s love of England, as a parallel to his for for Lucy, becomes one of the poem’s central themes.

Some of the vivacious qualities a person loses in death—movement and sense perception—double as elements of poetic practice. A poet without a muse cannot write with force, nor offer aural and visual details. The combined loss of both muse and lover is one of the central themes of the Lucy poems.

Lucy represents the poetic imagination, that characteristic which allows one to find figures in the “floating clouds.” In other words, it is the poet’s muse who is lent the metaphors and images in the cloudy sky.

Throughout the poem, Wordsworth evokes a number of senses in the description of Lucy. The comparison to a fawn here is kinetic, bringing to mind a flurry of activity. The poem’s swift meter is particularly useful in evoking the bounding of a young deer.

Wordsworth’s five Lucy poems, written between 1798 and 1801, focus on the speaker’s love for a beautiful young English woman; the speaker idealizes Lucy and mourns her untimely death.

Throughout the poem, Wordsworth evokes a number of senses in the description of Lucy. The comparison to a fawn here is kinetic, bringing to mind a flurry of activity. The poem’s swift meter is particularly useful in evoking the bounding of a young deer.