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Lucy poems in the Lyrical Ballads. All these poems are about a young girl
named Lucy whose identity and relationship with Wordsworth are
unknown. However, the poems reveal that the poet loved her dearly and
she died very young. As in other „Lucy Poems‟, here too, the poet presents
Lucy as having become one with nature after her death.
Theme
The poem 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal' is about the death of a loved
one and poet's feeling about his beloved when he thinks about
her death. He is deeply grieved over her death. The poet describes
his imagination about his beloved after death. This poem is a kind of
elegy.
The theme of A Slumber Did My Spirits Seal is also the idea of life,
death, and life after death. The poem, like all Lucy Poems, treats the
subject of her death. The poet deals with the theme of loss through
death and the sorrows that follow. The death of Lucy has left the
poet in great pain to the extent that he talks of her death as
transforming her into “rocks and stones and trees”.
The poet does not mourn her death as an ultimate end. He, who had
once considered her to be above old age and death, now finds her
inseparably blended with the earth and the nature. Thus, another
theme is the immortality of the human soul; Williams Wordsworth
immortalizes Lucy by stating that she lives in nature after her
physical death. Finally, the third theme is nature. After her death
Lucy has become a part of nature and lives on in it.
The title
The title of the poem is apt for its adaptation as William Wordsworth
writes this poem as a ballad for 'Lucy'. However, who is this 'Lucy' is
unknown. It is a short poem of four lines that ends with the demise of the
character and her subsequent disappearance in nature
.