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What kind of life did Lucy lead and what impact did her death have on the poet?
Quick answer:
Lucy led a quiet, obscure life in the English Lake District, living in isolation with few people knowing or loving her. Her death had a profound impact on the poet, who mourns her deeply, highlighting that even a simple, humble person can significantly affect another's life. Wordsworth emphasizes that Lucy's life, though lived in anonymity, held great meaning to him.
Lucy lived a quiet, obscure life in a cottage in an out of the way place in the English Lake District. Because of her isolated life, few people knew her, and therefore few could love her. The narrator compares her to a violet growing so close to a mossy stone that it is half hidden from view.
Lucy is reminiscent of the simple, common people who Thomas Grey comments on in his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Gray compares obscure villagers to flowers that bloom undetected:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
It is likely that Wordsworth, who wanted to celebrate the lives of simple people, was alluding to Gray's famous poem. Lucy is like Gray's unseen flower, beautiful only to the very few who know her.
One of them is the speaker, who mourns her early death. He is emotionally moved by losing her, as the lamenting "oh," and the exclamation point at end of the poem signify:
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
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