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LINES 9-10 She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; Lines 9 and 10 resemble lines 3 and 4, but don't simply repeat their message. Rather, they deepen the speaker's portrait of Lucy as a young woman who lived alone and unappreciated. Line 9 begins with the phrase, "She lived unknown." The speaker features the fact that Lucy lived, reminding the reader, and those that didn't know Lucy, that despite her anonymity she lived a life just as rich as anyone else's. The phrase is an affirmative reminder. "It doesn't matter that you didn't know her," the speaker seems to be saying. "Lucy lived, and it's my job today to prove it." This line resembles lines 3 and 4 in that it refers to the public's ignorance of Lucy, but its tone is somewhat different. In lines 3 and 4, the tone is almost hopeless. It is the beginning of the speaker's lament. But the delicate, luminous language of stanza 2 improves the situation a bit. It may be that hardly anyone appreciated Lucy in life, but in stanza 2 the speaker gives her the praise she deserved. Lines 9 and 10, therefore, are infused with slightly more optimism. If it wasn't for the limits of meter, the speaker may just as well start line 9 by saying, "She may have lived unknown," and then go on to explain that Lucy's virtue made a lasting impact (and this is exactly what the speaker will do at the end of the poem). In any case, as in line 3, the speaker doesn't blame the public for not noticing Lucy. It was simply the way things were. The line features a case of polyptoton that emphasizes this attitude of the speaker. The repetition of "know" almost justifies the public's orientation toward Lucy. Lucy "lived unknown," and the reason, the speaker says, is that few had the capacity to know her. Yes, the second "know" actually belongs to a separate clause, which continues in line 10. But the comma caesura's division and the line's graphical length (physically, it's the longest line in the poem) briefly isolate the phrase "and few could know." Given the content of line 10, which reveals for the first time Lucy's name, and the fact that she died ("ceased to be"), line 9's elongation reflects the speaker's hesitation to admit what happened. As if intoxicated by his or her beautiful memory of Lucy, which reaches its aesthetic peak in stanza 2, the speaker cannot bear returning to earth and admitting that Lucy no longer dwells among the living. The expression "ceased to be" may also be a sort of evasion. Yes, it helps the line fit the poem's alternating iambic tetrameter/trimeter(line 10 is in trimeter), but it also avoids mention of "death," a more painful word. The semicolon that end-stops line 10 supports this reading. The speaker, it seems, must take an extended pause to center himor herself before continuing.