William Wordsworth experienced much loss in his life. His parents died when he was an adolescent, and several of his own children died when they were young. The poem “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” commemorates a girl Lucy, who some speculate was created by Wordsworth to express his own personal grief.

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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