The beginning of the poem, according to Wordsworth biographer Mary Moorman, depicts a "creative sleep of the senses when the 'soul' and imagination are most alive." This idea appears in other poems by Wordsworth, including Tintern Abbey.
Lucy is an isolated figure in which the narrator responds to her death. The narrator's response to her death lacks bitterness or emptiness and instead takes consolation from the fact that she is now beyond life's trials: No motion has she now, no force She neither hears nor sees Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. The second stanza maintains the quiet, even tone of the first, but serves to undermine the former's sense of the eternal by revealing that Lucy has, by the time of composition, died. The poem begins:Ī slumber did my spirit seal I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. The first is built upon an even, soporific movement in which figurative language conveys the nebulous image of a girl. Written in spare language, "A slumber." consists of two stanzas, each four lines. The Lucy poems fall within a genre of poems that includes Robert Herrick's lamentations on the death of young girls.
#William wordsworth biography series#
The decision by critics to include the poem as part of the series is based in part on Wordsworth's placing it in close proximity to "Strange fits" and directly after "She dwelt" in the Lyrical Ballads. Unique amongst Lucy poems, "A slumber" does not directly mention Lucy.
Eventually, "A slumber", was published in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads. In December 1798, Wordsworth sent copies of "Strange fits" and "She dwelt" to Coleridge and followed his letter with "A slumber". From October 1798, Wordsworth worked on the first drafts for his "Lucy poems", which included " Strange fits of passion have I known", " She dwelt among the untrodden ways" and "A slumber". The poem is a mere eight lines long two "stanzas."ĭuring the autumn of 1798, Wordsworth travelled to Germany with his sister Dorothy and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is usually included as one of his The Lucy poems, although it is the only poem of the series not to mention her name. " A slumber did my spirit seal" is a poem written by William Wordsworth in 1798 and published in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads.
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