was the poet who most exemplified the Romantic movement in America, and his poem "Lucy

Gray" contains many elements of Romanticism, both in style and in content.

The most notable element of Romanticism in this poem is Wordsworth's use of sensory imagery;
he uses four of them in particular in this poem. Taste imagery is represented in his description of
the young Lucy Gray:

--The sweetest thing that ever grew

Beside a human door!

Later he says she has a "sweet face" and then that we

may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.

The poet's consistent use of "sweet" to describe the girl is a clear reference to taste, though it also
suggests touch and smell.

Touch is also clearly presented in this poem. Though we have some rough wood and the wooden
bridge, the falling and fallen snow (which is both cold and wet) is the primary touch imagery.

Sound imagery is also prevalent in this short poem. Most are literal sounds; however, the first
line ("Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray") only suggests storytelling, the sound of a human voice
relating a tragic tale. More literal sound is found in nature; it is the "stormy night," the reason the
young girl leaves her house. Though it is a snowstorm, there is the sound of the wind and the
snow in a time of disturbance. Most of the other sound imagery is man-made in some fashion:
the minster-clock striking two, Lucy's father working, and of course the human cries as her
parents search for her and then realize she is gone:

The wretched parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;...

They wept--and, turning homeward, cried....

Finally, we have the sound of a "new" Lucy, as she

...sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

Sight imagery is the most obvious, as we have the light of a lantern, the whiteness of the snow,
the footprints on the bridge, and more. Clearly Wordsworth wanted us to experience this
narrative with all of our senses, indicative of the Romantics.

This poem is also consistent with the themes of Romanticism, primarily the idea that it is futile
for man to fight against Nature, as Nature is preeminent. Here a young girl happily ventures from
her home and family to do a kind deed; however, she is met with the mighty force of Nature and,
equipped only with her small, man-made, light, she succumbs to it. Ironically, while it is the
forces of Nature which defeat her, the specific place of her defeat is man-made.

When her parents trace her footprints, they discover that the prints end at the bridge, a man-made
structure designed to thwart Nature's intended landscape. Lucy Gray did not just inadvertently
walk into a river, she was disoriented in her harsh surrounding and met a rather violent death as
she walked off the bridge. This depiction of man's helplessness in the face of Nature is a
quintessential aspect of the Romantic thinking.

There is also a Gothic element to this narrative poem, as a little, innocent girl is tragically killed
in the course of doing a loving and kind thing for someone she loves, which is turn causes more
grief to those she intended to help. It is a kind of grotesque, tragic circle of irony, not an
uncommon Romantic element.

Finally, the last picture we have of "sweet Lucy Gray" is one of joy and contentment; however,
that is only because she has now, through her death, become one with Nature. This, too, is one of
the primary themes of the Romantic movement in literature.