Dorothy Woodsworth

It appears that Dorothy's poetry is based on her travels with her brother and her life experiences as well. The only thing about Dorothy's personal life that i quite do not understand is why she never married and felt so close to William over her other brothers, I know that they were closer in age. I do wish Dorothy would have written more. However, my favorite poem of Dorothy's was Thoughts on My Sick-Bed. In this poem Dorothy is talking about one of her times she was ill. She was using nature to describe how she felt in her youth to how she felt then in her present state, at an older age. "With joyuful heart in youthful days/ When fresh each season in its Round/ I welcomed the earliest Celandine/ Glittering upon the mossy ground." In this stanza she is expressing how she felt in her youth. " NO! then i never felat a bliss/ that might with that compare/ which, piercing to my couch of rest/ came on the vernal air" She is using spring to describe how she felt in her youth. It must have been hard for Dorothy to have outlived her brother by five years. Especially, seeing as how close they were and she helped raise his kids. My question still remains as to why Dorothy never sought out a life of her own seperate from William. Or why she always referred to herself as Williams sister and did not think of herself as an author. Maybe, she did not want to take the spotlight away from William and wanted him to be successful. I suppose she might have thought she was being selfless and exuding a sister's love.