"She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" by William Wordsworth -- Norton Literature

William Wordsworth was born in England on April 7, 1770.  Throughout his life, he was a very prolific and renowned writer, accredited with initiating the Romantic Age in English Literature with his publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, and posthumously acknowledged for his greatest work, The Prelude.  This fame earned him the title of Poet Laureate of Britain in 1843, which he possessed until his death in 1850.




"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                                 5
    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;                            10
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
    The difference to me!
                                                                  [1800]

Though only twelve lines long, William Wordsworth’s poem “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways” is a moving piece, written about a most potent feeling indeed, revealing a powerfully quiet and personal quality as well as an elegiac tone through the voice of the first person speaker, as much of heart and soul of the poem would be lost to a clinical third person narration.  Throughout the poem, we learn much not only about the object of the speaker’s love, but his own personal feelings as well.  We learn that the speaker’s love was a beautiful woman who led a simple life by a small stream in northern England, secluded and unknown to the rest of the world.  But we also learn why the speaker loved her: she was “like a violet by a mossy stone,” untainted by the smog and sin of cities, and “fair as a star, when only one/Is shining in the sky,” or pure as the light in the black of night.  The lover is so stricken by her death that he visibly displays breathlessness and speechlessness (and, oh,/The difference to me!).  In fact, he is so overcome with emotional angst that he has only the ability to procure a very short poem, using only simple and concise diction and syntax throughout very short lines, just over ten in number.  Through this short but deeply elegiac poem, the speaker summons every last ounce of poetic skill he has to give a pure and simple eulogy for his pure and simple flower, who, though he will not ever see again in life, will continue to be with him as one more twinkling star, giving hope on a cloudless night.

"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson -- Norton Literature

Claudia Emerson was born January 13, 1957 in Virginia.  In recent years, she has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and was named Poet Laureate of Virginia.  She now makes her residence in Virginia as an English professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University.


"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson


I was unloading groceries from the trunk
of what had been her car, when the glove floated
up form underneath the shifting junk--
a crippled umbrella, the jack, ragged
maps. I knew it was not one of yours,                                5
this more delicate, soft, made from the hide
of a kid or lamb. It still remembered
her hand, the creases where her fingers


had bent to hold the wheel, the turn
of her palm, smaller than mine. There was                       10
nothing else to do but return it--
let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water
to rest on the bottom where I have not
forgotten it remains--persistent in its loss.
                                                                                     [2005]

The poem “Driving Glove” is a deeply melancholic piece of a man’s conversation with his second partner.  While going about his everyday business unloading groceries, he describes finding a driving glove that belonged to his late wife.  This is a psychologically powerful event for him, as it is reflected by the sudden change in the structure of the poem.  Immediately, after a long dash mark, the poem shifts gears from a simple description of his task of unloading groceries to a slow motion description of the fall of his late wife’s souvenir.  Caught up in the past, he reminisces on the material of the glove (“this more delicate, soft, made from the hide/of a kid or lamb”), and even the creases that the glove “still remembered,” emphasizing the emotional connection he still has to his previous wife.   The deep and contemplative attention to even the smallest details creates an elegiac tone which slows down the poem and draws us into the alternate dimension in which the narrator experiences the passage of time.

After these details, however there is a slight tone change.  The narrator realizes he has been dwelling on this uncomfortable topic and, instead of holding on, does what is best for himself and moves on, though not entirely detached, remarking that “There was nothing else to do but return it—/let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water.”  Instead of abiding in the alternate dimension, the narrator realizes that life isn’t going to wait for him, and decisively (but not willingly) puts the glove back to rest, along with the memories of his wife, though the glove remains “persistent in its loss.”  With this change of time, we see a return from a mournful, contemplative tone to a detached and almost clinical tone found at the beginning; a tone that tries to forget the past because the wound hurts too much.  Thus, the two specific tones in the poem create alternate speeds of the passage of time, lengthening this relatively quick encounter to match the many years of partnership the narrator has lost.