Lucy Poems and "Lucy"- the song

What if someone writes a bunch of poems- beautiful and lyrical poems- about a little girl. And after a couple of hundred years, what if someone else turns those poems into a melodic and hauntingly beautiful song? If you knew the poems by heart and you suddenly came upon the song on the radio, how would you feel?

Such were my feelings when I heard The Divine Comedy song “Lucy” on a CD. A dear friend had wanted me to give TDC a try and I had put the CD on and was going about relaxing when the song came up. Within twenty seconds I sat up and thought, “Hello, I know these lyrics! They sound like a poem I read in high school.”

Sure enough they were. Neil Hannon had taken the Lucy Poems by William Wordsworth and decided to turn them into a haunting song of love and loss. Love for the little girl called Lucy but also love for England; and heartbreaking loss when the little girl was no more.

I don't know about you but rendering the poem into song has made me love it even more. Hannon has given the poem a voice- a yearning sense of affection that is usually absent when you open a volume of verses to read. I felt that the poem and its subjects have come alive. I could understand Wordsworth's deep patriotic stance about England and the affection he felt for a little girl who became the source of joy to his bruised soul. Neil Hannon simply made it three dimensional: as if the book of poems have just become a pop-up book, but for adults.

I don't want to go into literary analysis of the Lucy Poems. Dry prose about the significance of poetry has never been appealing to me. I have a very layman's attitude towards poetry. If it moves you, if it touches your soul, if it gives you pause then no amount of scholarly discourse would substitute for it. Look at it this way: if the world was going to end in the next sixty seconds, but all you can think of is the last couple of lines from a poem you had read a long time ago- then I hope you are not in charge of the planet! But clearly that reflects the power of the words: in the face of impending doom they still resonate in your mind. In that case you do possess a soul worth having.

I confess that beyond high school and a couple of college courses, I had not given Romantic poetry much thought. But the song brought back all the yearnings that I had felt but ignored and allowed to wither away. I could say I found my inner self that day- or at least began the journey of rediscovering myself- but you would be right to dismiss it as hyperbole. All I can say is that I became aware of the sheer effect of the words of the poems and the voice that sang them to me.

An indescribable sadness is the only way I can describe the effect. It literally hurt to breathe, my feelings and emotions had welled up and were choking me, I was so overwhelmed. You would not think that words had such power would you? And such innocuous words they were too!

So here ar the Lucy Poems of Wordsworth, as a song, sung by Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy:

 
  I travelled among unknown men,
            In lands beyond the sea;
          Nor, England! did I know till then
            What love I bore to thee.

          'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
            Nor will I quit thy shore
          A second time; for still I seem
            To love thee more and more.

          Among thy mountains did I feel
            The joy of my desire;                                     
          And she I cherished turned her wheel
            Beside an English fire.

          Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
            The bowers where Lucy played;
          And thine too is the last green field
            That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

          She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,
          A Maid whom there were none to praise
            And very few to love:

          A violet by a mossy stone
            Half hidden from the eye!
          --Fair as a star, when only one
            Is shining in the sky.

          She lived unknown, and few could know
            When Lucy ceased to be;                                   
          But she is in her grave, and, oh,
            The difference to me!

            A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:
          She seemed a thing that could not feel
            The touch of earthly years.

          No motion has she now, no force;
            She neither hears nor sees;
          Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
            With rocks, and stones, and trees.

                                                                - William Wordsworth