The Thorn

Wordsworth's "The Thorn" tells the tragic story of Martha Ray and her troubling life. Represented by the thorn in the poem, she is plagued by heartbreak and the death of her child, which have led to the destruction of her life. Those events "all have joined in one endeavor/to bury this poor Thorn for ever" and as a result, she spends her time upon the hill, crying and lamenting her losses. Her life, once a promising one filled with love, is now one of tragedy and warning to the reader. Her story is mysterious; the narrator is unaware of the circumstances regarding her baby's death. Though she is alive, she has become a sort of ghostly, haunting figure, weeping on the hill for twenty years over the death of her child and the loss of her love. She is unable to escape the tragedy of her past, it is made clear that "the Thorn is bound/with heavy tufts of moss that strive/to drag it to the ground," and she is left to haunt the hill with her misery.