She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways

“She dwelt among the untrodden ways” is a ballad composed in three quatrains, or four-line stanzas. A ballad usually tells a story, and is often romantic. A ballad’s rhyme scheme is consistent. In each stanza, either the first and third line will rhyme (ABAC) or the second and fourth lines will rhyme (ABCB). Wordsworth combines these techniques to use an ABAB CDCD EFEF rhyme scheme.

Wordsworth also uses the traditional “ballad meter”: tetrameter (four groups of unstressed followed by stressed syllables) in the A lines, and trimeter (three groups of unstressed followed by stressed syllables) in the B lines. There is some variation on the stresses in Lines 1, 5, 7, and 12, irregularity that enhances the idea that the speaker’s grief overcomes the rhythm.

Wordsworth uses the ballad form in this poem, as well as the poems “Lucy Gray” and “Strange fits of passions I have known,” to connect his work with regional folk songs. This enhances the idea that Lucy is unknown to others but is magical to the speaker.