“She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad; Her eyes were fair…Her beauty made me glad”(Lyrical Ballads pg 70, L:8-12). Who is this young girl, and why does Wordsworth deem her story worth telling? What sticks out to me is the young girl’s purity and innocence. She ‘said’ she was eight years old, but the fact that the author includes that this is information revealed by the girl makes the reader suspect that she may actually be younger. This playful lie reveals her childishness. The Maid’s ‘rustic, woodland air’ and the fact that she was ‘wildly clad’ connects her in an intimate way to Nature. Rustic, around the time that Wordsworth wrote this poem, had many meanings including, “rude or country workmanship; of a plain or simple form or structure; spec. constructed of undressed branches or roots of trees”(OED ). This direct reference to trees, the wild, what grows naturally and what is untamed comes to the mind of the reader when thinking of this untainted Maid.
Another definition used during Wordsworth’s time for ‘rustic’ was: plain and simple; unsophisticated; having the charm of the country”(OED). I love the phrasing used here. Wordsworth’s adventure takes place in the uncultivated English countryside, and he is trying to poke at his alleged ‘sophisticated’ poet contemporaries. He uses the Maid as a symbol to reveal the importance and simple beauty of what is wild and Natural.
One more connection between human and plant life, or what is natural, stuck out to me in this Poem. When the narrator insists that the Maid’s family now only comprises five members, the Maid replies, “their graves are green, they can be seen…”(Lyrical Ballads pg 71, L: 36-37). The obvious connection between what is ‘green’ and what is ‘alive’ is constructed in this phrase. Perhaps it is because the Maid sees the green grass, and in her innocence believes that something must be alive in brother and sister that allows the grass to grow over their graves. Maybe Wordsworth was trying to tell the reader that death is really just part of a inborn process, and some part of Nature within us unites with the rest of Nature in the end.
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Nice work presenting this in class. I like your use of the O.E.D. and your general conclusions about the meaning of the "green" on the graves. I don't think she lies about her age, though. I just don't see any indication of it in the poem, just because the speaker says "she said." That's pretty straightforward.
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