Analysis

The title immediately draws the attention due to the use of two rather removed words: “dwelt” and “untrodden”. This might mean the poem was written a long time ago or that the poet wanted to draw the attention of the reader on language itself.

The text seems to refer to a “she”: this might mean the “she” might be an old woman, a young girl or an innocent child. The reader doesn’t know yet and might be interested to find it out. In addition, he should be curious to discover why the “she” lives or has chosen to live in hidden places. Textual analysis could also unveil the reason why the poet wrote a poem about her.

The layout of the text tells the reader it is a ballad and that it might be a simple text. Its structure consist in three stanzas, each one of four lines. Lines have different length and it has alternate rhymes.

In the first quatrain, the narrator gives the reader some information about the protagonist of the poem and which might help the reader to discover who the woman is. The information given deal with the setting: the narrator tells that the woman lives “beside the springs of Dove”. his expression is vague and the reader might not know what the place is or he might not be able to relate it to a specific place. This means that the place mentioned by the narrator is a special place, maybe only known by him and the woman. Moreover, vagueness surrounds the character of the protagonist with mystery.

Anyway, the narrator adds more specific information about the woman by using the word “Maid” (line 3): “Maid” is an old literary word (this confirm the hypothesis of the title and the reader understands the poem was written long time ago) that stands for a woman, presumably a young lady, who is not married. Considering both conjectures from the title and from the first stanza, the reader might pose a question: why should an unmarried young lady live alone and hidden? In the following lines, the narrator tells that the lady has a very few relationships, but he does not explain why. The narrator raises the reader’s interest and curiosity and incite him to go on reading, in order to know why the lady lives alone, whether it is her choice or not.

         The second stanza is a short digression, which seems to shift the reader’s attention from the lady. In this quatrain the reader comes across two metaphors: the first one deals with flowers, the second one with stars. The use of the word “hidden” recalls the word “untrodden” of the title because of the meaning and, of course, it recalls the presence of the lady in this quatrain. So, the narrator uses two figures to describe her: first, he describes her as a “violet by a mossy stone”, which underlines her grace. Instead, the second metaphor hints to the Sun, because it is the only star in the sky when it shines. The two figures also deal with the sense of sight, which means that in this stanza the narrator recalls the reader’s sight to tell him that the lady is beautiful.

         Moreover, the narrator may allude to his feelings towards the lady and the narrator becomes a part of the “very few” men of the fourth line. This is confirmed by the word “Maid”, because it starts with a capital letter: the lady is the only one to the narrator.

         The information given aren’t enough to solve the mystery that surround the lady, indeed they increase again the reader’s interest to discover why she lives alone and unmarried, though she is beautiful.

The last stanza finally reveals the woman’s identity: her name is Lucy. The past tense used in the first line, but also in the first stanza, strikes the reader’s attention and suggests him that Lucy’s life might be over. This hypothesis is confirmed in the second line, where the narrator tells that the lady died.

The words “lived”, “ceased” and “grave” make the tone is dramatic and the atmosphere full of sadness – the narrator’s sadness. The reader can understand it by the expression “oh”, which might be interpreted as a sigh or a lament, due to the narrator’s feelings towards Lucy. Moreover, the reader doesn’t know whether Lucy loved him back or not and maybe the narrator himself had never known it, because of the lady’s isolation.

Least, but not last, the narrator still doesn’t explain openly why Lucy lived unknown, whether it was her choice or not. After analyzing the whole poem, the reader might think that it actually was her decision to live alone: the expression “few could know” tells the reader that the men who loved Lucy were not able to know about her death, because she didn’t want them to know that.

         The narrator’s attitude strikes the attention: his behavior suggests the reader that he followed her life from a quite close point of view, because he loved her, but he never did anything to tell her. This might hint to the narrator’s shyness. Moreover, his behavior justifies the sigh/lament in the last stanza: the narrator is stricken with remorse because he watched her dying and he deeply regrets having done nothing.

         In conclusion, the message that the narrator wants to communicate to the reader is that people should not be doubtful and should do something before it’s too late.