Three years she grew in sun and shower
Encyclopedia
"Three years she grew in sun and shower" is a poem composed in 1798 by the English poet William Wordsworth
, and first published in the Lyrical Ballads
anthology which was co-written with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
. As one of the five poems that make up the "Lucy series
", the work describes the relationship between Lucy and nature using a complex opposition of words and sentiments. Wordsworth uses antithetical couplings of words —'sun and shower', 'law and impulse' 'earth and heaven', 'kindle or restrain'— as a device to evoke the opposing forces at work in nature. There is further conflict and opposition between nature and mankind, as both attempt to possess Lucy. The poem thus contains both epithalamic
and elegiac
characteristics; the marriage described is between Lucy and nature, while her human lover is left to mourn in the knowledge that death has separated from her from mankind, and she will forever now be with nature.
Nature interrupts the voice of the poet after the first line and a half, in the words of the literature historian Susan Eilenberg, usurping "the poet's control over his poem...and not letting him speak again until it (nature) has destroyed its subject".
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
, and first published in the Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature...
anthology which was co-written with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
. As one of the five poems that make up the "Lucy series
The Lucy poems
The Lucy poems are a series of five poems composed by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth between 1798 and 1801. All but one were first published during 1800 in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, a collaboration between Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge that was both Wordsworth's...
", the work describes the relationship between Lucy and nature using a complex opposition of words and sentiments. Wordsworth uses antithetical couplings of words —'sun and shower', 'law and impulse' 'earth and heaven', 'kindle or restrain'— as a device to evoke the opposing forces at work in nature. There is further conflict and opposition between nature and mankind, as both attempt to possess Lucy. The poem thus contains both epithalamic
Epithalamium
Epithalamium refers to a form of poem that is written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber...
and elegiac
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
characteristics; the marriage described is between Lucy and nature, while her human lover is left to mourn in the knowledge that death has separated from her from mankind, and she will forever now be with nature.
Nature interrupts the voice of the poet after the first line and a half, in the words of the literature historian Susan Eilenberg, usurping "the poet's control over his poem...and not letting him speak again until it (nature) has destroyed its subject".