Solitary Reaper

-William Wordsworth

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 chant

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 today?
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.

Look at her, alone in the field, that Scottish Girl by herself over there. She is cutting the
grain and singing to herself. Stop and listen to her or walk on quietly. She cuts and gathers the
grain and sings a sad song. Listen: the deep valley is overflowing with her music.
 No nightingale ever sang more soothing notes to tired groups of travelers as they rested at
an oasis in the Arabian desert. The cuckoo-bird never sang with such an affecting voice in the
spring, breaking the ocean’s silence around the Scottish isles.

Won’t anyone tell me what her song is about? Maybe she sings so sadly for old tragedies
and ancient battles. Or maybe the song is humbler, about everyday things—the pains and
sorrows that everyone endures.

Whatever she was singing about, the young woman sang as though her song would never
end. I saw her singing while she worked, bending over to cut the wheat with a sickle. I listened to
her without moving. And as I walked on, up a hill, I carried her music in my heart: and I still do,
long after I stopped hearing it.

Four line summary

The first four lines of "The Solitary Reaper" announce the poem's broad themes and
introduce the reader to its formal technique. The poem begins with apostrophe: the speaker
addresses the reader directly, commanding them to "behold" and "stop here." The poem is thus
an invitation—an invitation to contemplation. The speaker asks the reader to stand and watch as
a Scottish woman—a "Highland Lass"—cuts a field of wheat with a sickle. The speaker uses the
present tense throughout these lines. As a result, the reader may feel that they are standing next
to the speaker, observing the scene together as it unfolds, listening to the reaper's song. Notably,
however, each of the speaker's addresses to the reader are separated from the rest of the line by
a caesura: even as the speaker invites the reader into the poem, he marks the reader's distance
from the scene he describes.

In these lines, the speaker does not tell the reader much about the lass's song—yet. But
the form of his poem may give the reader some hints about the song itself. The first four lines of
the poem closely approximate a stanza of a ballad. At the time that Wordsworth wrote "The
Solitary Reaper," the ballad was a folk form, in wide use across the British Isles for popular
songs and lowbrow verse. It was not a highly literary form like the sonnet or heroic couplets.
Instead, ballads often used everyday language to tell unpretentious stories of everyday life and
love in the countryside and cities. Further, ballads were often collaboratively authored: one
anonymous poet adding a stanza, another rearranging the order of stanzas, a third deleting
stanzas or changing the theme, or writing new words to the same melody. Scottish poetry also
makes prominent use of the ballad, in print and in popular song. Indeed, it seems likely that the
reaper's song was a ballad or a piece of music emerging from the ballad tradition.

Ballads had a standard rhyme scheme and meter—though, as a popular form, these

standards were rarely strictly upheld in practice. Traditionally, ballads rhyme in an ABCB
pattern (the second and fourth lines rhyme, the first and third do not), with alternating lines of
iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. The first four lines of "The Solitary Reaper" follow this
pattern—almost. They do rhyme ABCB; but the first three lines of the poem are in iambic
tetrameter followed by a single line of iambic trimeter. This means that the first four lines of the
poem follow the pattern of a ballad, but with an extra foot in line 2—a relatively minor deviation
from the standards of a genre whose standards are already loose. The speaker here seems to be
imitating the formal dynamics of the reaper's song, in a sense recreating the reaper's song for the
reader.

The first stanza of the poem is heavily end-stopped; it is enjambed only in lines 1 and 7.

This creates a slow, contemplative reading experience: the reader is encouraged by the end-stops
to ponder each line, to dwell on them meditatively. But the speaker also employs a subtle pattern
of assonance, particularly on an /i/ sound, to bind together the stanza and keep the reader
moving through it.

Line by Line Explanation

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!

The poet, while travelling in the Highland valleys, comes across a lonely Highlander
reaper girl who is harvesting the crops and singing by herself. He tries to draw the attention of
the passers-by to the girl by calling them to ‘behold her’. The poet urges them to stop there and
listen to her song, or to pass by gently without disturbing her in her singing.

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

The solitary reaper girl is cutting and binding the grain while singing a sad song. The
poet again urges the other travellers to listen to her music, as it is overflowing the deep valley.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:

Now the poet compares the reaper girl’s song with that of the sweet singing nightingale
bird. The melodious note of a nightingale sounds sweet and welcoming to a tired group of
travellers in some shady shelter in the middle of the Arabian desert. But the song of the Highland
girl is sweeter than that of the nightingale.

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.

Now the comparison shifts to the cuckoo, another well-known song bird. The cuckoo bird
in springtime breaks the silence of the seas in the far-off Hebrides islands. But, according to the
poet, the song of the solitary reaper is more thrilling than that of the cuckoo.

Will no one tell me what she sings? —

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

The poet doesn’t comprehend the meaning of the song or its subject matter, as the girl is
probably singing in her native Gaelic language. So, he asks the other travellers there if anyone
can throw some light on ‘what she sings’. From its tone, he guesses it to be a mournful song
(plaintive numbers) about some old unhappy things and past battles.

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?
 Wordsworth again guesses that the song might be about some more usual happenings like
some natural sorrow, loss or pain, a death or a domestic day-to-day incident which has occurred
or may happen 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; —

In this last stanza of “The Solitary Reaper”, Wordsworth talks about the impact the
reaper’s song left upon his mind. No matter what the theme was, the maiden girl was singing like
there’s no stopping. Our poet saw her singing at her work bending over her scythe. The flow of
her music was so impressive that it seemed to be never-ending.

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 listened to the girl’s song, stopped on his way and stood still, very much
charmed by the girl’s beautiful song. When the poet was climbing up the hill, the song could no
longer be heard from there, but he bore the music, the melody of the solitary reaper’s song in his
heart. Such was the impression of the song upon his mind.