“She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways”

The title immediately draws the attention due to the use of two rather remote words. 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 two words are not only remote, they are also the longest in the title. The text seems to refer to a she: this might mean the she may be an old woman, a young girl or an innocent child. The reader doesn’t know yet he 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 word “untrodden” recalls to a solitary life and makes the reader suppose the woman used to live alone. 

The poem "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" is a ballad and it seems quite simple. It consists of three short stanzas. In these short stanzas, the poet tells of his admiration and devotion to Lucy and his desperation over her death. The first two stanzas focus on Lucy while she is still alive, and the last stanza tells the reader of Lucy's death and the poet's response to it. In the first stanza, the writer describes the isolated and beautiful place where Lucy lived. He shows that her singular beauty wasn’t noticed. In the second stanza, he compares her shy beauty to a hidden flower. This can suggest the girl’s innocence. He compares her innocence, loneliness and purity to a single star. In the third stanza, the poet shows that Lucy was unknown and died young. Her death is a cause of deep sorrow in the writer.

The purpose of the writer in writing this ballad seems to be dual. The poem is a reflection of his meditations and reflections about his feelings of losing Lucy, the woman he probably loved during his life. The other purpose is to elevate the girl, who never really had the chance to shine and died alone.

There a different themes that the reader can find within the text. The first one is loneliness. Lucy used to live alone in a deserted place or that was “untrodden” as the writer calls it. She had no support from companions or family. She never had the chance to share her beauty with others and shine like a star. As she lived, she also died alone, without many knowing. The second theme is beauty in nature. The writer portrays nature’s beauty in his imagination (“The untrodden ways. Beside the springs of Dove. Lucy lives in a place whose natural beauty seems sacred, untrodden”). The third theme is death. In this poem the poet cries the death of Lucy, who stopped existing, even though not many knew about her. The fourth theme is the beauty of a woman. Lucy’s portrait is the portrait of a woman who is unique, beautiful and unknown. She was as ‘fair’ as a star, probably Venus that appears after sunset. She was as beautiful as a flower, ‘violet’, beside a green stone, a ‘mossy stone’. She deserved great praise for her beauty, but she lived alone: ‘A maid whom there were none to praise’. And the fifth and last, but not least, theme that the intelligent reader can find in the balled is love. The final line expresses the poet’s feeling of loss at the death of such a beautiful woman.

There is a mysterious tone throughout the poem. The words ‘she’ and ‘Maid’ provide a sense of mystery. The location ‘untrodden ways’ indicates an unknown and untouched place, which itself is mysterious. The description in the second stanza has a strong tone of admiration. The tone of the final stanza is mournful. The writer expresses his feelings in a gentle tone. All this conveys to the poem both the feelings of solitude related the condition of Lucy and of nostalgia felt by the writer when he writes about his loved one. He was in love with that woman, but she died alone and he just observed her life without interfering. The message that that the reader should read between the lines lays in the very last sentence, where the poet implicitly warns the reader of the consequences of non-acting: time passes and opportunities fade away before you decide to either catch them or not.