THE SOLITARY REAPER

Behold her, single in the field (a)
Yon solitary highland lass! (b)
Reaping and singing by herself; (c)
Stop here, or gently pass! (b)
Alone she cuts and binds the grain, (d)
and sings a melancholy strain; (d)
O listen! for the vale profound (e)
Is overflowing with the sound. (e)

No Nightingale did ever chaunt [chant] (a)
More welcome notes to weary bands (b)
Of travellers in some shady haunt, (a)
Among Arabian sands: (b)
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard (c)
In springtime from the Cuckoo-bird, (c)
Breaking the silence of the seas (d)
Among the farthest Hebrides. (d)

Will no one tell me what she sings?—(a)
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow (b)
For old, unhappy, far-off things, (a)
And battles long ago: (b)
Or is it some more humble lay, (c)
familiar matter of to-day? (c)
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, (d)
That has been or may be again? (d)

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang (a)
As if her song could have no ending; (b)
I saw her singing at her work (c)
And o’er the sickle bending;– (b)
I listened, motionless and still; (d)
And, as I mounted up the hill (d)
The music in my heart I bore, (e)
Long after it was heard no more. (e)

William Wordsworth,

“The Solitary Reaper” is a poem by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and one of his best-known works. “The Solitary Reaper” was written on November 5, 1805 and published in 1807. The poem is broken into four eight-line stanzas (32 lines total).

The rhyme scheme for the stanzas is either abcbddee or ababccdd. (In the first and last stanzas the first and third lines don’t rhyme, while in the other two stanzas they do.)

Summary and Analysis of “The Solitary Reaper”

* In the first stanza the speaker comes across a beautiful girl working alone in the fields of Scotland (the Highland). She is “Reaping and singing by herself.” He tells the reader not to interrupt her, and then mentions that the valley is full of song.

“Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;”

→The poet orders his listener to behold a “solitary Highland lass” reaping and singing by herself in a field’

“Stop here, or gently pass!”

→ He says that anyone passing by should either stop here, or “gently pass” so as not to disturb her.

“Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound..”

→ As she “cuts and binds the grain” she “sings a melancholy strain,” and the valley overflows with the beautiful, sad sound.

* The second stanza is a list of things that cannot equal the beauty of the girl’s singing:

“No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.”

→ The speaker says that the sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary travelers in the desert, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling.

* In the third stanza the reader learns that the speaker cannot understand the words being sung. He can only guess at what she might be singing about:

“Will no one tell me what she sings?–

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?”

→ He is forced to imagine what she might be singing about. He speculates that her song might be about “old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,” or that it might be humbler, a simple song about “matter of today.” He supposes that she may be singing about history and things that happened long ago, or some sadness that has happened in her own time and will happen again.

* In the fourth and final stanza the speaker tells the reader that even though he did not know what she was singing about, the music stayed in his heart as he continued up the hill:

“Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o’er the sickle bending;–

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.”

→ the poet asks, “Will no one tell me what she sings?” Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened “motionless and still,” and as he traveled up the hill, he carried her song with him in his heart long after he could no longer hear it. Though his ears cannot hear the song anymore, the sound of the Highland Lass’s music will forever be a fresh and evocative memory in his heart.

II

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I wandered lonely as a cloud (a)
That floats on high o’er vales and hills, (b)
When all at once I saw a crowd, (a)
A host of golden daffodils; (b)
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, (c)
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. (c)

Continuous as the stars that shine (a)

and twinkle on the Milky Way, (b)
They stretched in never-ending line (a)
along the margin of a bay: (b)
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, (c)
tossing their heads in sprightly dance. (c)

The waves beside them danced; but they (a)
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: (b)
A poet could not but be gay, (a)
in such a jocund company: (b)
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought (c)
what wealth the show to me had brought: (c)

For oft, when on my couch I lie (a)
In vacant or in pensive mood, (b)
They flash upon that inward eye (a)
Which is the bliss of solitude; (b)
And then my heart with pleasure fills, (c)
And dances with the daffodils. (c)

William Wordsworth

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is an 1804 poem by William Wordsworth. It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy came across a “long belt” of daffodils. It was first published in 1807, and a revised version was released in 1815.

This poem is inspired by Wordsworth’s stomping grounds, is well-loved because of its simple yet beautiful rhythms and rhymes, and its rather sentimental topic. The poem consists of four six-line stanzas, each of which follow an ababcc rhyme scheme.

Summary and Analysis of “I wandered lonely as a cloud”

* In the first stanza the speaker describes a time when he meandered over the valleys and hills, “lonely as a cloud.” Finally, he came across a crowd of daffodils stretching out over almost everything he could see, “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”:

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

→  By comparing himself to a cloud in the first line of the poem, the speaker signifies his close identification with the nature that surrounds him.

* In the second stanza the speaker goes into more detail about the daffodils. They reminded him of the Milky Way, because there were so many flowers packed together that they seemed to be never-ending. The speaker guesses that there were ten thousand daffodils, which were “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance”:

“Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on  the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

* In the third stanza the speaker compares the waves of the lake to the waves of daffodils and decides that even though the lake is “sparkling,” the daffodils win because they have more “glee.” He then comments that he, like any other poet, could not help but be happy “in such a jocund company.” He looked at the scene for a long time, but while he was there he was unable to understand what he had gained from the experience:

“The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed–and gazed–but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:”

* In the fourth and final stanza the poet describes what he gained from the experience. Afterwards, when he was lonely or feeling “pensive,” he could remember the daffodils, seeing them with his “inward eye,” and be content:

“For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”

CONCLUSION

Along with “The Solitary Reaper”, “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” is one of Wordsworth’s most famous post-Lyrical Ballads lyrics.

The words of the reaper’s song in “The Solitary Reaper” are incomprehensible to the speaker, so his attention is free to focus on the tone, expressive beauty, and the blissful mood it creates in him. In it, Wordsworth describes in the first person, present tense, how he is amazed and moved by a Scottish Highlands girl who sings as she reaps grain in a solitary field.

This poem is different with “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” because it is based closely on his own experiences, while “The Solitary Reaper” is based on the experience of someone else: Thomas Wilkinson, as described in his Tours to the British Mountains.

The idea of remembering the beauty of nature in even when not in its presence appears in several of Wordsworth’s later poems.  Even though the speaker is unable to appreciate the memory he is creating as he stands in the field, he later realizes the worth that it takes on in sad and lonely moments. This is a prevalent theme in “The Solitary Reaper”, for instance, the same idea is used in “I wandered lonely as a cloud” when the speaker takes the memory of the field of daffodils with him to cheer him up on bad days.

Like the maiden’s song in “The Solitary Reaper,” the memory of the daffodils is etched in the speaker’s mind and soul to be cherished forever. When he’s feeling lonely, dull or depressed, he thinks of the daffodils, and cheers up. The full impact of the daffodils’ beauty (symbolizing the beauty of nature) did not strike him at the moment of seeing them, when he stared blankly at them but much later when he sat alone, sad and lonely and remembered them.

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