Poem: She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
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!

বঙ্গানুবাদ

সে অপ্রচলিত পথের মধ্যে বাস করত
ঘুঘুর ঝর্ণার পাশে,
একজন দাসী যার প্রশংসা করার মতো কেউ ছিল না
এবং ভালোবাসার জন্য খুব কম ছিল।
একটি শ্যাওলা পাথর দ্বারা লুকানো
বেগুনি চোখের অর্ধেক লুকানো!
ফর্সা, একটি তারার মতো যখন কেবল আকাশে জ্বলজ্বল করে!
তিনি অজানা থাকতেন, এবং খুব কম লোকই জানতে পারে
যে লুসি কখন মারা যায়;
কিন্তু সে তার কবরে, আর ওহ!
এটাই আমার কাছে পার্থক্য।

বাংলায় ব্যাখ্যা

এই কবিতাটি কবি উইলিয়াম ওয়ার্ডসওয়ার্থ এর লুসি কবিতার অন্তর্গত একটি কবিতা। কবি মোট পাঁচটি লুসি কবিতা লিখেছেন 1798 থেকে 1801 সালের মধ্যে, যখন কবি জার্মানিতে ছিলেন। লুসি হলো একজন কুমারী অল্পবয়স্কা মেয়ে যাকে কবি খুব ভালোবাসতেন। এই মেয়েটি কাল্পনিক মেয়েও হতে পারে। আবার কেউ কেউ মনে করেন এই মেয়েটি কবির বোন ডরোথি।

কবিতাটিতে মোট তিনটি স্তবক আছে। প্রথম স্তবকে কবি লুসির জীবন ও জীবনের গতি পথ দেখিয়েছেন। মেয়েটির এমন স্থানে বসবাস করে যেখানে কেউ যায় না। তার বাড়ি ডাভ নদীর তীরে। সে একজন কুমারী সুন্দরী মেয়ে। কিন্তু তার সৌন্দর্যের প্রশংসা করার মতো সেখানে কেউ নেই এবং খুব কম লোকই আছে যারা তাকে ভালোবাসে। কবি এই স্তবকে দেখিয়েছেন লুচির সৌন্দর্য, কিন্তু তার সৌন্দর্য সকলের অগোচরে থেকে যায়।

দ্বিতীয় স্তবকে কবি তার প্রেমিকার সৌন্দর্যের পরিপূর্ণতা কে দেখিয়েছেন। কবি এখানে তার প্রেমিকাকে একটি ভায়োলেট ফুলের সাথে তুলনা করেছেন যেই ফুলটি শেওলা ঢাকা পাথরের উপর জন্মায়। ফুলটি খুবই সুন্দর হওয়া সত্ত্বেও সকলের দৃষ্টির বাইরে থাকে, ঠিক যেমনভাবে কবির প্রেমিকা লুসি থাকেন। এরপর কবি তার প্রেমিকাকে শুকতারার (প্রেমের দেবী) সাথে তুলনা করেছেন। কবির মতে, আকাশে যেভাবে শুকতারা জ্বলজ্বল করে ঠিক তেমনভাবেই তার প্রেমিকা উজ্জল।

তৃতীয় স্তবকে কবি তার প্রেমিকার অকালমৃত্যুর কথা প্রকাশ করেছেন। কবি বলেছেন সকলের কাছে প্রেমিকার বসবাস স্থান অজানা। এবং খুব কম লোকই জানতে পেরেছিল কখন তার প্রেমিকা লুসি মারা যায়। এখন তার প্রেমিকা কবরের মধ্যে শায়িত কিন্তু কবি মনে করেন লুসির মৃত্যু কবির জীবনে অনেক পার্থক্য এনে দেয়।

Summary

This poem is a poem belonging to the poet William Wordsworth’s poem Lucy. The poet wrote five Lucy poems between 1798 to 1801 when the poet was in Germany. Lucy is a virgin young girl whom the poet loved very much. This girl could also be fictional. Some people think that this girl is Dorothy, the poet’s sister.

The poem has a total of three stanzas. In the first stanza, the poet shows Lucy’s life and her way of life. The girl lives in a place where no one goes. Her place of residence is on the banks of the River Dove. She is a beautiful virgin girl. But there is no one to admire her beauty, and very few people love her. The poet has shown Lucy’s beauty in this stanza, but her beauty remains invisible to all.

In the second stanza, the poet shows the perfection of the beauty of his lover. Here the poet compares his lover to a violet flower that grows on moss-covered rocks. Although the flower is lovely, it is out of sight, and no one cares to notice, just like the poet’s lover Lucy. Then the poet compares his lover to a bright star (Goddes of love). According to the poet, his lover shines just as the brilliant stars shine in the sky.

In the third stanza, the poet reveals the untimely death of his lover. The poet says that the place where the lover is unknown to everyone. And few people knew when his lover or girlfriend Lucy died. Now his lover is lying in the grave, but the poet thinks that Lucy’s death dramatically changes the poet’s life.

Summary stanza-wise

Stanza 1:
The first stanza begins with the speaker describing a maiden whose identity is not yet specified. He relates how she lived in a remote place where few people ever went. The speaker emphasizes that she lived by the springs of Dove-an actual location in England. Despite the peaceful description of her surroundings, the speaker reveals that she was never praised and was an unloved-a lonely figure.

Stanza 2:
The speaker begins to describe the maiden in greater detail. He compares her to a violet concealed by a mossy stone that no one cared to notice. He compares her beauty to that of a star- notably, a single brilliant star shining in the sky. In a few words, the speaker conveys the power of the maiden’s beauty.

Stanza 3:
The third stanza repeats the fact that the girl lived an unknown life. Since the girl lived unfamiliar because of its loneliness, very few people know when it ceased to exist. For the first time, the speaker reveals that the girl in question is Lucy, who is no longer alive. This tragic incident tortures the speaker, who has indicated throughout the poem that he loves her.

সারাংশ স্তবক-ভিত্তিক

স্তবক 1:
প্রথম স্তবকটি একজন বক্তার বর্ণনা দিয়ে শুরু হয়, যার পরিচয় এখনও নির্দিষ্ট করা হয়নি। তিনি বর্ণনা করেন কিভাবে তিনি একটি প্রত্যন্ত স্থানে বাস করতেন যেখানে খুব কম লোকই গিয়েছিল। স্পিকার জোর দিয়ে বলেন যে তিনি ডোভের ঝর্ণায় বাস করতেন-ইংল্যান্ডের একটি প্রকৃত অবস্থান। তার চারপাশের শান্তিপূর্ণ বর্ণনা সত্ত্বেও, বক্তা প্রকাশ করেন যে তিনি কখনই প্রশংসিত হননি এবং তিনি ছিলেন একজন প্রেমহীন-নিসঙ্গ ব্যক্তিত্ব।

স্তবক 2: 

বক্তা মেয়েটিকে আরও বিস্তারিতভাবে বর্ণনা করতে শুরু করেন। তিনি তাকে একটি শ্যাওলা পাথর দ্বারা লুকানো ভায়োলেটের সাথে তুলনা করেন যা কেউ খেয়াল করেনি। তিনি তার সৌন্দর্যকে তারার সাথে তুলনা করেন-বিশেষত, আকাশে জ্বলজ্বলকারী একক উজ্জ্বল নক্ষত্র। অল্প কথায়, বক্তা মেয়েটির সৌন্দর্যের শক্তি প্রকাশ করে।

স্তবক 3: 

তৃতীয় স্তবকটি এই সত্যটির পুনরাবৃত্তিকরে যে মেয়েটি অচেনা জীবনযাপন করেছিল। যেহেতু মেয়েটি অচেনা বাস করত। তার একাকীত্বের কারণে, খুব কম লোকই সম্ভবত জানতে পারে যে কখন তার অস্তিত্ব বন্ধ হয়ে গেছে। প্রথমবারের মতো, স্পিকার প্রকাশ করেন যে প্রশ্নে থাকা মেয়েটি লুসি এবং সে আর বেঁচে নেই। এই দুঃখজনক ঘটনাটি বক্তাকে অত্যাচার করে, যিনি পুরো কবিতা জুড়ে ইঙ্গিত করেছেন যে তিনি তাকে ভালবাসেন।

Evaluate the poem as a lyric.

This poem is a beautiful lyric about the beauty of nature. Before going to evaluate the poem as a lyric, we need to know the features of a successful lyric. A lyric is a kind of subjective short poem dealing with the poet’s personal feelings, emotions, thoughts, and imagination of the poet. A lyric reveals the intense emotion of the poet which makes it suitable for singing with a musical instrument. Lyric is called so because originally, it was composed and designed to be sung with the ‘Lyre”, a musical instrument of ancient Greece.

This poem is a successful lyric because it carries the intensely personal emotions of the poet. The poet’s deep love and hearty sympathy for the neglected people of society are revealed through this poem. The poet knows a woman who lives almost alone near a river in the hills, where very few people visit. There is none to admire this woman and very few persons to love her. To the eyes of the poet, this woman is as beautiful as the violet flower and as bright as the evening star as it shines single in the sky of dusk. But this woman lives in a solitary place in the lap of nature, far from the eyes of civilized society. One day she dies unknown and unpraised. She is now in the grave. Nobody feels her absence in the world. Only the poet feels a great loss at the death of this woman. This poet loved this flower of nature, the star in the sky. He felt a sense of happiness when that woman was alive, and his world is full of sorrow at her death of the woman.

This short poem with a regular rhythm and rhyme scheme offering its singing qualities. Judging from every angle, this poem is a successful lyric.

Central Theme

The central theme of this poem is love for the neglected people of society. The poet wants to say in this poem that there are a lot of promising men and women who live unknown to society and die unpraised.

This is a very short poem of only twelve lines. The poem deals with a woman who lived a solitary life on the untrodden way near the spring of Dove. Her name was Lucy and she was the child of nature. The poet compares her beauty to a violet flower bloomed by a mossy stone and half-hidden from human notice. Her beauty and brightness are compared with the evening star that shines alone in the sky of the dark. But this beauty of nature was not loved and admired by one society. She had every possibility of being fully bloomed with all her glories. Lucy was a symbol of natural beauty that takes birth in a hidden place, grows up beyond human notice, and dies without having any praise from society.

The poet had deep love and admiration for this unknown flower hidden in the lap of nature. Very few people knew about this beautiful flower. This flower of nature died one day without any notice, care, love, or praise from anyone in a civilized society. But the poet is one of the very few persons who had hearty love and sympathy for this solitary woman and felt deep pain at the death of this beauty and wealth of nature.

Author’s Position and Tone

The poem is narrated from the point of view of an omniscient speaker who describes the solitary lovely figure of Lucy. The poet portrays a unique and unknown beautiful woman. 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. The final line expresses the poet’s feeling of loss at the death of such a beautiful woman. Now he can feel the difference in his situation of utter grief that has been created by the loss of the one of divine bliss when she was alive. This note of personal grief in no way disparages the appeal of the poem. Thus the poet retains his position as somewhat objective.

The poem opens in a mysterious tone. The words ‘she’ and ‘Maid’ provide a sense of mystery. The location ‘untrodden ways’ indicated an unknown and untouched place, which is mysterious. The second stanza describes in an admiring tone the physical and mental beauty of this unknown maid. In the closing stanza, this strong tone of admiration changes to a deeply sad and mournful one at the untimely death of the beautiful maid. Thus the poet expresses his feeling in varying tones which is overall gentle.

Figures of speech

The poem is about an unknown maid called Lucy whose life and death create immense sadness and pathos in the mind of the reader. The sadness and ecstasy in the poem are created by some effective use of figures of speech including metaphors, similes, alliteration, assonance, etc.

The poem beings with a metaphor of ‘untrodden ways’ with which Lucy’s living place is compared. The image of untravelled paths suggests the maid’s secluded natural habitat as well as her isolation and loneliness. In the stanza, her beauty and purity are suggested by a metaphor of a violet, a symbol of purity and beauty. But her beauty is half-screened by a mossy stone, a beautiful metaphor to suggest her isolated existence. Quite contrarily, by using a simile she is compared to a star most probably to Venus, the emblem of love, which appears alone after sunset to suggest her exceptional beauty and loneliness. The star is not half-hidden but rather visible to all. Besides metaphors, there are also other literary techniques used to emphasize the themes. Alliteration is used in lines like “half-hidden”. Sibilance is used throughout with lines like “as a star” and “sky”. The sibilance serves to emphasize the remoteness of the subject and the poem itself. It serves to emphasize the lonely atmosphere and woman that the poet describes. Similarly, assonance is used in almost every line of the poem. “Dove”, “none”, “love”, “mossy stone”, “Is shining”, “sky”, “unknown”, “know”, “ceased”, “be”, “she”, “me”, and many more. The use of this repeated assonance gives the poem a musical or nursery rhyme quality about it. Thus the poet’s meaning is beautifully expressed through the use of figures of speech.

Generic Form:

The poem is a short lyric. It is a lyric with an elegiac undertone. It has the characteristics of an elegy as in the poem the poet laments a person’s death. It has also the characteristic of a balled as the poem tells a bit of a story. The poem is emotional. The poet expresses personal experience. He shows his sorrow for the death of Lucy, the simple, rural girl. The poem also shows his subjective attitude toward, and musical. The poem can be sung as it contains many sound devices such as alliteration, assonance, and sibilance.

How does the poet describes the beauty of Lucy?

Lucy is a beautiful girl. The poet compares her to a violet covered with a mossy stone. The very fact that violet is placed by a mossy stone means that people will fail to notice the beauty of the violet as it will be overshadowed by the stone. To the poet, however, Lucy is special and he is the only one who can see how beautiful she really is. The poet again emphasizes her beauty by comparing her with a star. He says that she is as ‘fair’ as a star. As she is compared to ‘only one star’ shining in the sky, it suggests her brightness and her unique beauty. As she is compared to a single star, it reveals her loneliness.