Possibilities for Lucy in Three Years she grew in sun and shower

McKain Williams

Blog Post #4 

In Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower, Wordsworth takes an interesting perspective on nature unlike what is usually seen in romantic poetry. The poem is a lyrical ballad and its song-like and rhyming form creates a happy tone which counters the darker subject matter within. Additionally, the poem is one of Wordsworth’s Lucy poems which almost all ultimately lead to this unidentified Lucy figure’s untimely death. In the poem “Nature” is personified with the use of the capital letter, dialogue, and actions it takes, and while this is not an unusual occurrence, the interactions among the characters of Lucy and of Nature and speaker’s stance on nature are what strike me as unusual. The poem can be read in different ways; however, it seemed to me— at least during my first reading of it— that Nature appeared as a somewhat villainous character. 

First, we see Nature— arguably— abduct Lucy as a three year old child, as Nature sees and admires her and claims in the opening stanza that “‘A lovelier flower on earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take and she shall be mine, and I will make a lady of my own” (lines 2-6). From this statement the relationship between nature can be read as possible pedophilia; it is with a loving eye that nature looks on this young girl— only three years old at the start— throughout the poem. Nature continues on to call the young girl “‘my darling’” (line 7) and later speaks possibly of a sexual encounter with the girl, speaking of her “‘vital feelings of delight’” (line 31), which “shall rear her form to stately height, her virgin boson swell’” (lines 32 and 33). This diction is pretty strong for use regarding nature as it denotes taking a very young girls virginity— not to mention that she was forcibly taken as a child, made to live with (“while she and I together live”), and seemingly raised by this Nature as well. 

Nature is made all the more villainous by the speaker who exists beyond this dialogue,—removed from it— and who has seemingly lost this young girl to Nature. It is unclear whether this narrator is a parental figure or a lover, but it is very clear that Lucy was once his as he mourns her death in the final stanza: “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” (lines 36-40). It appears here that Nature took the life out of her, and allowed her to die when its work was done. The tone in the final stanza can be read as angry, “how soon my Lucy’s race was run!” indicating that her life ended too soon, and Nature appears to be taunting him as well with the “calm and quiet scene”— the peacefulness contrasting his feelings— leaving him with a reminder that it was Nature that took her and will never return her. 

However, there are no doubt other, less dark ways in which to interpret the poem as well. Disregarding this personification and instead regarding “Nature” as a force acting upon this girl so strongly it speaks to her and is given humanistic characteristics, we can perhaps read the poem as a girl being empowered by the natural world. Perhaps Lucy is a girl both attracted to and chosen by nature. She is a sun child— either literally or figuratively a little flower as she “grew in sun and shower” (line 1) and is called “a lovelier flower” (line 2)— who connects with Nature and receives from it “an overseeing power” (line 11). Nature seems to choose her to provide her with connections to “earth and heaven, glade and bower” (line 10). Nature seems to shape her and interact with her as well as the poem says “the floating clouds their state shall lend” (line 19), “the stars of midnight shall be clear to her” (line 25), “beauty born of murmuring sound shall pass into her face” (line 29-10). Nature exists beside her as she grows, transforms her, and perhaps gives her new life— even awakening her to her sexuality with the “vital feelings of delight..” (line 31). In accordance with this interpretation, perhaps Natures “work” in the final stanza was not such a bad thing, and perhaps the speaker is simply heartbroken— or maybe even still angry— about the loss of Lucy to nature, but perhaps it was her choice to submerge herself into it.