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.
“Stop here, or gently pass!” we are bid in William Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper,” and thus we are invited to admire the beauty of the song of a Highland girl while she tends to her work. Wordsworth’s poetry depicts everyday scenes from country life, as he believed that under simpler circumstances the passions of the heart could reach their maturity.According to Wordsworth, poetry finds its origin in emotion recollected in tranquility. Poetry, therefore, was not merely a feeling immediately written down but was mediated through contemplation later on.
The society of his day, however, was often an impediment to this process, filled with constant stimulation and ceaseless activity. It was therefore best, according to Wordsworth, to borrow scenes from rustic life and to use an accessible, everyday language to describe ordinary emotions.
The poem was published in 1807 and could have been partly inspired by Wordsworth’s trip to Scotland in 1803. However, he drew more direct inspiration from a line in Thomas Wilkinson’s book, “Tours to the British Mountains” (circulated among friends for years before its publication in 1824): “Passed a female who was reaping alone: she sung in Erse as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever heard: her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious, long after they were heard no more” (Erse being a Scottish variant of the Gaelic language).
So, too, the song described in the poem lingers in the listener’s heart long after its conclusion. The poem prompts us to reflect on what makes the song so impactful that it would impress itself deeply upon the memory.
Invitation to Listen
The speaker in the poem is arrested in his travels by the song of the Highland girl; the music stops him on his determined path and gives him pause for thought. The speaker acts as mediator to the reader: Though he bids us to stop and listen to the song, we can only access his experience of the song through the poem. As he recounts the tale, he tells us that the immensity of the valley overflows with the melancholy tune, and he commands us twice to pause and appreciate its beauty.
There is urgency to these commands: “Behold her,” “Stop here,” and “O listen!” They crescendo until they reach the exclamation, insisting that there is something extraordinary to witness here. If we choose to ignore it, the speaker gives us an alternate command to “gently pass.”
He echoes the universal call to appreciate all beauty in nature and art even if, like the speaker, we cannot fully understand it. However, if we choose to be unresponsive, he bids the reader to not disturb the beauty of the scene for others.
The human figure is central in the poem as the girl stands solitary against the backdrop of the field of wheat. Wordsworth evinces a deep appreciation of the beauty of the natural world, for in the second stanza he contrasts the voice of the Highland girl to that of the nightingale and cuckoo.
To these singers too, the natural backdrop of the desert or sea is given importance in the poem, just as the setting of the girl’s song is incorporated into the musical panorama. The character of the backdrop brings the song into relief in each case: The barren, sandy landscape of the desert renders the nightingale’s delicate beauty especially welcome, and the silence of the sea and the remote islands lends a dramatic emphasis to the solitary voice of the cuckoo bird that shatters that quiet.
However, the speaker attests that there’s no competition between these feathered musicians and the solitary reaper. The girl’s song is superior by far. The speaker’s love of nature has served as preparation for love of man. In both, he is able to appreciate the simple, natural beauty of creation and recognize that it is good.
The girl’s song, however, is infused with meaning, though he does not understand it. Language has imbued the song with both historical and cultural significance. The speaker can distinguish between the rational capabilities of man and the instinctive beauty of the birds, but without being able to appreciate the beauty of nature, he cannot appreciate the elevated status of the girl’s song. The same natural beauty runs through both of them, but through their difference, the speaker can more fully appreciate the gifts of emotion, intellect, and memory that are given to man.
Melody to Memory
The speaker demonstrates reverence for the girl’s work. He watches “motionless and still” lest he should interrupt the song. The unconscious beauty he has stumbled across is uncontrived, and there is a sense that the girl may stop in her song if she were to become aware that it was heard by others.As it is, she beautifies the difficult task before her, exemplifying the notion that duty makes us do things well, but love bids us do them beautifully. The girl clearly demonstrates a love for her art and her work, singing “as if her song could have no ending.”
In a sense, the girl’s song really does have no ending; it endures in memory and in its impact on others. The speaker notes, “The music in my heart I bore, long after it was heard no more.” Whether the song describes the history of a people or tells of a singular sorrow, it is woven into the individual history of the speaker, who in turn shares it with others.
Michael O’Neill and Charles Mahoney, in their commentary on the poem, write: “At the end, with its unexpected movement into the past tense (‘the Maiden sang’, l. 25), it turns out, too, to be a poem about the role played by memory in preserving and internalizing experience.” In the final stanza, the speaker details several actions: “I saw her,” “I listened,” “I bore.”
Both sensory perception and intellectual engagement are involved in properly beholding the scene, but there is also a notion of work on the part of the speaker. In the end, it is not only the Highland girl who is busy at her task; the speaker too is engaged in the work of carrying away her song in memory.
By saying that the song remains in his heart, the speaker implies a deeper connection to the song than having it stuck in his head. Rather, there is an emotional response to it, and since he cannot understand its lyrics, he responds to its contagious melancholy and is left to imagine what particularly it is about.
Forging Connections
Though the solitude of the reaper contributes to the melancholy lilt of the song, the poem is just as much about connections as it is about solitude. O’Neill and Mahoney write: “This solitary, however, is associated with connections, harmony and doubling (evident in verbal patterns such as ‘Reaping and singing’ (l. 3) or ‘cuts, and binds’ (l. 5), and in the fact that the solitary reaper is celebrated by the solitary poet.” In this way, connections are forged between the actions of the reaper and the poet who internalizes her song.These connections point to how the speaker ascribes a universal nature to this song. He ties past and present together as he ponders how the melancholy strain could just as easily be describing heroic battles of old as it could be telling of the sorrows of the present day. All people, regardless of age, language, or culture, are able to find beauty in it and to draw from their own experience and memory so as to understand the emotion conveyed by the song. The emotion is one that needs no translation, for it has touched the hearts of us all.
