The poetic voice, as a typical Romanic tactic, connects nature's beauty to Lucy's elegance. She is compared to "a violet on a mossy stone/Half concealed from the eye" and a lovely star "when just one shines in the sky." These parallels help to highlight Lucy as the epitome of all beauty. They also convey a sense of eternity, as both violets and stars are eternal. Lucy was inspired by William Wordsworth's sister, who died when she was only twenty-one years old. He used her death as motivation for writing poems that would "live long after we were dead". This is certainly true of Lucy, who continues to attract readers more than 200 years after her death. Wordsworth also based Lucy on a real person: his own sister, Dorothy. Like Lucy, Dorothy died at a young age (she was only thirty years old). Also like Lucy, Wordsworth used her death as inspiration for poetry that would live on after they were gone. In fact, some of Dorothy's poems were so impressive that they were published under her brother's name! Finally, Lucy reminds us that life is short and we should enjoy each moment because someday it will be over. This idea is echoed in several of Lucy's poems where she compares this world to a dream.