If you knew.
Maybe you do. If so, you should know. Like I know. I sleep and wake up. It's churning my gut and setting the course for my day. I am so afraid to speak of it. I like it and I hate it. And it hurts; in so many ways, it hurts. I want you to feel like I feel. Deal and squeal and reel in the same way, Pound and yearn and ruin your day. And still when you sleep, Wake up to know it might always be this way.
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The poem was written by romantic poet, William Wordsworth, and is one of my favorite poems. The world is obsessed with beauty, and there is no shortage of poems in praise of pulchritude, but not many people take time to acknowledge those not blessed with beauty.
Wordsworth's poem is a quiet appreciation of the the woman who often goes invisible. It has all the comparisons to nature a romantic poem naturally has. Compare the line, "fair as a star when only one is shinning in the sky" to Shakespeare's, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, thou art more lovely." While Shakespeare lifts his love's beauty above nature's best, Wordsworth's beauty is given a sort of "backhanded compliment." Sure, you can be fair as a star, but only if there is only one to compare you to/no one to overshadow you. He's not claiming she can outshine stars/nature, but that her beauty is more understated. Considered part of Wordsworth's "Lucy" poems series, it is considered a meditation on loneliness and isolation--an appreciation of someone no one else sees except the poet himself, who admires her from afar. She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 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! |
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