The Lucy poems are a series of five poems composed by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth between 1798 and 1801. All but one were first published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800, a collaboration between Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge that was both Wordsworth’s first major publication and a milestone in the early English Romantic movement. In the series, Wordsworth sought to write unaffected English verse infused with abstract ideals of beauty, nature, love, longing and death. Although they individually deal with a variety of themes, as a series they focus on the poet's longing for the company of his friend Coleridge, who had stayed in England, and on his increasing impatience with his sister Dorothy, who had travelled with him abroad. Wordsworth channeled his frustrations into an examination of unrequited love for the idealised character of Lucy, an English girl who has died young. The idea of her death weighs heavily on the poet throughout the series, imbuing it with a melancholic, elegiac tone. Whether Lucy was based on a real woman or was a figment of the poet's imagination has long been a matter of debate among scholars. The "Lucy poems" consist of "Strange fits of passion have I known", "She dwelt among the untrodden ways", "I travelled among unknown men", "Three years she grew in sun and shower", and "A slumber did my spirit seal".

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1609:

Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana opened its reading room to the public, becoming the second public library in Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_Ambrosiana

1941:

The Holocaust: The Chelmno extermination camp in Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill the Jews of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt and the Warthegau by poison gas, began operating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelmno_extermination_camp

1980:

Former Beatle John Lennon was fatally shot in the entrance hallway of the Dakota apartments in New York City. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_John_Lennon

1991:

Leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine signed the Belavezha Accords, agreeing to dissolve the Soviet Union and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Independent_States

2004:

Twelve South American countries signed the Cusco Declaration, announcing the foundation of what is now the Union of South American Nations, an intergovernmental union modelled after the European Union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

John Lennon glasses (n): A pair of eyeglasses (spectacles) with round lenses http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/John_Lennon_glasses

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people — that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature. --James Thurber http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Thurber