In “The Lucy Poems,” Wordsworth shows his emotion and love towards an unknown girl called Lucy. His emotion is written in his poetic words describing her and the background countryside. “She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love.” He shows surprise that she dies and expresses sadness. “A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears.”
In “To Autumn,” Keats personifies autumn, and writes of how autumn must watch the things that happen, and what it must do. Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.” Whereas Wordsworth uses similes and metaphors to create an idea of Lucy. “A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye –Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.”
The poems are both individual and introspective, reflecting their inside emotions, and using their past to express feelings of sadness and joy. In “To Autumn,” Keats uses his admiration of the views around him and makes detailed references to the parts he likes the most; “While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.” Wordsworth tells a story of Lucy, while describing her life using emotions he has had to experience; “I travelled among unknown men, in lands beyond the seal Nor, England! Did I know till then What love I bore to thee.”
A lot of romantic poetry was based on thoughts and feelings from the poet’s subconscious mind. Both Wordsworth and Keats use this idea in their poetry. Keats describes the granary; “Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind, Or on a half reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume off poppies, while thy hook.” Wordsworth used the subconscious mind as well; “Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed, The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy’s eyes surveyed.”
The main feature of romantic poetry, and the main feature of the two poems is nature. “To Autumn” is based on the nature of Autumn and what it is like in Keats’ eye. “The Lucy Poems” describe the nature of Lucy, and the way she lived, as well as the nature that she lived among. “Hedge-crickets sing and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.” Keats describes the nature that he sees in Autumn, and puts it bluntly. Wordsworth makes his words less descriptive but makes the whole aspect of the poem different. “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.”
Another point of romantic poetry is the return to earlier verse form, so the poet can make the verse fit the subject of the poem he is writing. This is typical in the Keats and Wordsworth poems. The Wordsworth poem is written in the style of a ballad, which is an earlier style of poetry. “I travelled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor England! Did I know till then What love I bore to thee.” It also has rhyming at the end of the line, typical of ballads. The Keats poem is written with every other line rhyming, though the lines are often much longer, and often not in the same beat. The poems also contain romantic language to emote the reader; “fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky,” and “then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, bone aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies.”
The last point of romantic poetry is the aspect of ideas from childhood returning into the poetry.