around girls and they are not part of his natural environment, as can be seen by the fact he is
described as having “awkward dreams,” concerning any kind of relationship and his bodily
features. However, it is clear that he appreciates them, as indicated by the phrase “drifting
like flowers,” with the word “flowers” highlighting their beauty. He uses words from his
natural environment to describe them. The farmhand’s bodily features are unsuited for
company around girls, his unappealing hairy hands and sun burnt face are not fit for ‘dancing
or love-making’; however when ploughing the earth they are perfect and are the obvious
result of this hot labour under the sun. His ‘hairy hands’ are unappealing and clumsy, and he
feels as though if he were to touch the girls he might break them, but they are suited to his
natural environment on the farm. Baxter tells of how the music tears open an old wound of
the Farmhand, a scar that hasn’t had a chance to heal and is a painful memory of something
his past. The use referring to the heartache that the character is feeling as a ‘wound’ is
effective because it something commonly known, and so the reader of the poem can relate to.
The music could be seen as a metaphor for the sun, and the wound as the flower; if this is so,
whenever there is music around the wound opens as a flower to the sun.
The crops in his mind are described as growing ‘slow’, and this perhaps reflects on his own
slow nature. This however is not the case. He is simply unhurried, there are no actual
indications that he is a fool. Baxter directly links ploughing, one of the chores of the
Farmhand, to the nature of the ocean as the ‘earth wave breaking’ when the plough runs over
it. It is obvious to the reader that when the character is farming, he is in his element as his
looks do not affect the way he does his job, in fact his ‘hairy hands’ are of use. The sound of a
tractor engine to most is noisy and loud, but when the Farmhand is listening it is described
almost as a song, that he is at ease the fact that it is ‘clear, without fault’, and finds its tune
perfect-like a lover to it’s partner. When forking bails of hay, it is easy to him, and his hands
that had been clumsy around delicate girls on the dance floor become in tune to the job he
performs effortlessly as the nature of it is part of him. He is given no name, and known
through out the poem as the ‘Farmhand’; this gives the impression that he is known by most
by this name, and he lives for his job. All the stanzas contain enjambment, with only a full stop at the end of each, this could be
interpreted that each stanza is a story or message alone. The stanzas are all roughly the same
size, but there the last line in the fourth stanza is significantly longer than any other lines in
the poem; this might be that it is more significant than the others. The poem contains a lot of
‘o’ sounds in words; this assonance makes it sound mournful and desolate. There is no rhyme,
but the rhythm is the same right through the poem.
Metaphors and similes conveying the sense of beauty and mystery of Lucy are used
throughout the poem-She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways-. She is described the most in the
second stanza, and is linked closely with nature throughout it. The phrase ‘a violet by a mossy
stone’ is a metaphor showing that Wordsworth thinks the girl is as beautiful as violet. The use
of the word ‘violet’ could also be from the saying ‘a shrinking violet’, meaning that the person
is shy. The association with a ‘mossy stone’ could represent something or someone that has
been there for a long time, because a stone becomes covered in moss when it has remained in
the same place for a long period of time. The second part of this sentence-‘half-hidden from
the eye!’ is a paradox, as nothing can be half hidden, it is either hidden or not. It implies that
the girl is only glimpsed, and could represent that she is slightly removed from society, or that
someone who is not as beautiful as her overshadows her. The other half of the stanza ‘-fair as
a star when only one is shinning in the sky.’ could be about how, when other people or things
are around she is eclipsed, or the same as everyone else; this could be taken as an insult. On
the other hand it could be a complement, as the planet Venus is sometimes mistaken as an
evening star as it is the brightest of all the planets and can be seen from earth, and might be
that she is the brightest and best for Wordsworth; another complement that could come from
it is that Venus is also the goddess of love. The use of both the violet and the star implies that
she is more complex, and has more depth, than when she meets your eye, or it might be
about her personality, she is, at first, shy (the violet), but when you got to know her she was
as vibrant as a star. It could also be that she was as beautiful as both as star and a violet. Lucy
could be referred to as the ‘child of nature’ as she lives among the ‘untrodden ways’ could be
interpreted that she lived in the woods, or somewhere when there was bareness and
remoteness, where no one had been before.
I think that both the characters in the poems are shy, but the Lucy in She Dwelt Among the
Untrodden Ways does not mind because she is contented with her solidarity. I believe the
Farmhand is the more powerful poem because his awkwardness around females and the
contrast with the farm emphasizes his true place in life more effectively than the idea that
Lucy is hidden from the rest of the world and her death.
