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LINES 5-6 A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! Lines 5 and 6 move the poem into territory that is metaphorical but nevertheless representative of Lucy's physical home "Beside the springs of Dove." The lines describe and celebrate Lucy's mysterious nature. The reader can think of all of stanza 2 as representing Lucy (who, by the way, still hasn't been named; for clarity, however, this entry will once again use her name). It follows the colon that ends stanza 1, and therefore serves to enhance and complicate the portrait of the "Maid" presented in that stanza. The first image in this description is of a flower—a "violet"—something the reader might imagine stumbling across during a jaunt by Lucy's humble little farmhouse, or wherever it is the reader imagines she lived. The "mossy stone" is also a natural feature of this landscape, an image the reader doesn't have to strain to accept; both the flower and the stone simply fit. However, even though this imagery is rooted in a real place, it is metaphorical. Lucy wasn't literally a flower; the speaker is simply comparing her to one. Thus, the poem encourages the reader to consider this image. What does it mean that Lucy reminded the speaker of a pretty purple flower next to a big mossy rock? Here, it's helpful to consider the lines that directly precede the metaphor. According to the speaker, "there were none to praise" Lucy. And it's not that people chose not to praise her. They simply didn't know she existed; that's how far away she lived from all the action. And yet, some people loved her. The metaphor in line 5 tells the reader something about those who loved Lucy (of which group the speaker is the most prominent member): they are people who pay attention. They are the type who, when passing by something beautiful though obscured—like a violet next to, and possible in the shadow of, an obvious, attention-hogging rock—would stop and appreciate that beautiful thing. In highlighting Lucy's virtue, which persisted despite being marginalized, the speaker also implies his or her own virtue. Unlike the majority, the speaker paid enough attention to notice Lucy. Lucy's virtue goes deeper than this, however. The speaker doesn't criticize the mossy stone for obscuring Lucy; it's simply there. Rather, the speaker appreciates Lucy's ability to shine a light on something as drab and quotidian as a moss-covered rock. There was, the speaker suggests, a selflessness to Lucy's virtue and beauty. Rather than hog the spotlight, she enhanced the beauty of everything around her. Unintentionally, however, Lucy's selflessness also enhances her own beauty, at least in the eyes of the speaker. Like the violet by the stone, she was "Half hidden from the eye!" "Half" indicates Lucy's general incompleteness: without anyone to praise her, there exists no definitive record of how Lucy actually lived. And "hidden," of course, enhances Lucy's incompleteness. But the exclamation mark that ends the line conveys the speaker's wonder and excitement—the speaker marvels over Lucy's "Half hidden" quality, and it seems as though the speaker appreciates Lucy even more because of it. To love Lucy, the speaker implies, was to constantly search for the ultimately unfindable key to her mystery. In expressing Lucy's mystery, the speaker further justifies the use of metaphor, the only thing that could approximate Lucy's essence. The word "eye" also comments on Lucy's inexpressible legacy. Wordsworth often talked about the "inward eye" (see "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"), the imaginative space in which the poet represents reality. Lucy, the speaker suggests, resists even the imagination, which is used to filling in empty spaces. She is as distant from the metaphorical eye of the imagination as she was physically distant from the eye of the public.