“Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Summary

“Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Themes

• 

  Nature and Humanity

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• 

  Mortality and Grief

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower”

• Lines 1-6

  Three years she grew in sun and shower,
  Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
  On earth was never sown;
  This Child I to myself will take;
  She shall be mine, and I will make
  A Lady of my own.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-12

  "Myself will to my darling be
  Both law and impulse: and with me
  The Girl, in rock and plain,
  In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
  Shall feel an overseeing power
  To kindle or restrain.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-18

  "She shall be sportive as the fawn
  That wild with glee across the lawn
  Or up the mountain springs;
  And hers shall be the breathing balm,
  And hers the silence and the calm
  Of mute insensate things.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 19-24

  "The floating clouds their state shall lend
  To her; for her the willow bend;
  Nor shall she fail to see
  Even in the motions of the Storm
  Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
  By silent sympathy.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-30

  "The stars of midnight shall be dear
  To her; and she shall lean her ear
  In many a secret place
  Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
  And beauty born of murmuring sound
  Shall pass into her face.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 31-36

  "And vital feelings of delight
  Shall rear her form to stately height,
  Her virgin bosom swell;
  Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
  While she and I together live
  Here in this happy dell."

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 37-42

  Thus Nature spake—the work was done—
  How soon my Lucy's race was run!
  She died, and left to me
  This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;
  The memory of what has been,
  And never more will be.

  

  

  

  

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“Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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“Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Sown
• Impulse
• Kindle
• Sportive
• Glee
• Balm
• Mute insensate things
• State
• Wayward round
• Vital
• Dell
• Spake

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Speaker

“Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower”

More “Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.

  • Lyrical Ballads — See images from the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, the important collection in which this poem first appeared.

  • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Wordsworth's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.

  • More on the Lucy Poems — Read a New Yorker article discussing Wordsworth's strange, haunting Lucy poems.

  • Wordsworth's Legacy — Visit the Wordsworth Society to learn more about Wordsworth's continuing influence.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

  • A Complaint

  • A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

  • Expostulation and Reply

  • Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)

  • It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

  • I Travelled Among Unknown Men

  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

  • Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

  • Lines Written in Early Spring

  • London, 1802

  • Mutability

  • My Heart Leaps Up

  • Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

  • Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

  • She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

  • She was a Phantom of Delight

  • The Solitary Reaper

  • The Tables Turned

  • The World Is Too Much With Us

  • To a Snowdrop

  • We Are Seven