After a long search – Lucy Gray

I used to enjoy & wait for the LA/Dr (Literary Activities/Dramatics) session in school unlike many of my friends who despised it. So did they despise the VE (Value education) hour unlike me who again loved it. It was never easy being the different one in a class. In one such LA/Dr hour, our teacher said she’d read us a poem & that we ought to act it out at the end of the class. I had loved the poem at once! The poem was enacted, the hour was over and forgotten.

Somewhere during the past twelve years, tiny incidents, stories & anecdotes reminded me of the poem little by little. I remembered the hour, my heart feeling heavy when I heard the poem, I remembered enacting it. I played the role of the mother and I had to put in a lot of energy for the emotions. The poem from the character’s point of view had made a great impact in me. Bit by bit it all came back to me. Though it is a famous poem, nobody around me had heard about it. All I knew was that the poem was by William Wordsworth and the story-line went thus:

Lucy – a little child – is sent out one evening to get her mother from the town after work. She takes a lantern and goes and never returns. Her mother gets back home & they all set out to search for the kid. After a long while they see her footprints which leads to a bridge and ends in the middle of it. Lucy was no more.

I began searching for the poem in the internet. Whenever I typed the word ‘Lucy’, the first option that appeared was ‘Lucy Gray’. I assumed she was a famous personality & ignored it. I learnt that Wordsworth had written five Lucy poems. I read the gist of them all but nothing was even close to this one. I was beginning to lose hope after searching, reading and re-reading them over the years. Finally, a week ago, I got curious and clicked onto Lucy Gray.

Lo! And Behold! She had always been right there and I hadn’t noticed. My joy knew no bounds. I was squeaking & exclaiming like a little kid who had got a surprise gift. I know, I must have looked like a fool. To this day, I do not know why I am so obsessed with that poem. I do not know why I let Lucy’s soul stay in my heart or why I searched so desperately for her, nor do I understand why I feel so at peace after finding her.

I am glad that I was different from others and that I accepted the fact. In my childishness, I wished I could change myself to suit my classmates. But I’m thankful that I never did. If I had, I’d have never been me. For instance, I’d have lost Lucy Gray & never searched for her.

While searching for the poem, I found this video (shared with permission) by Yathish Dhavala.

The poem has been depicted beautifully with graphics & apt music. I enjoyed it and hope you will too. For those who haven’t read the poem, here it is Lucy Gray 🙂 It is worth a read and a treat for poem lovers.

PS: Thanks to our LA/Dr ma’am for introducing the poem to us.