Wordsworth, William - The solitary reaper (3)

The solitary reaper

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

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.

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?

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's reflection

“The solitary reaper” is a William Wordsworth’s poem, written in 1805. The structure of this poem follows the “I wandered lonely” one, both, in fact, tell about emotions and experiences which are remembered later, while the poet is in his own tranquility. There, the poet remembers a girl who is reaping the grain. The first stanza is characterized by solitude, loneliness and there, the poet gives us the setting: the poem is set in the Scottish Highlands. She’s singing a song while she works and this underline the sense of solitude of the poem, in addition the poet was impressed by this song so much that he remembered it many years later, although he did not understand the meaning because of she was singing in a strange language.

Poem structure and style

The poem consists of four stanzas, each one contains eight lines of regular length, and they are also aligned and begin with capital letters. Rhymes are structured according to a definite pattern, which is: ABABCCDD – EFEFGGHH- IJIJKKLL- MNONPPQQ.

In the text there are several run-on lines like in lines 7-8 (“for the Vale profound Is overflowing”), in lines 9-10 (“did ever chant More welcome notes”), in lines 10-11 (“to weary bands Of travelers”),in lines 13-14 (“ne'er was heard In spring-time”) in lines 15-16 (“the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides”), in lines 18-19 (“the plaintive numbers flow For old”), in lines 25-26 (“the Maiden sang As if her song”) and in lines 30-31 (“as I mounted up the hill The music in my heart”).

We must pay attention to the diversity of tenses in each stanza: in the first one, he uses the imperative form; in the second one, the past and the negative form; in the third one the interrogative form and in the fourth one the past.

Personal opinion and connection

Sincerely, I don’t like it so much because the solitude that the poet expresses makes me angry. Reading this poem I thought of a scene from the film "Io non ho paura”, when Michael, the main character, run free in an enormous wheat’s field.