The Solitary Reaper

Okay so here's what I think/found:

First of all, Wordsworth visited the Scottish Highlands in 1803 and it's said that solitary reapers were not very uncommon. Also, in an essay that I read about Wordsworth, it said that he said that he tried to write in 'simply' so people of all classes could understand and get the point behind his poetry.

This poem was pretty straight forward. It is also in first person present tense. In the first stanza, he orders the reader to draw their attention to the girl who is singing as she reaps on the Scottish Highlands. He immediately tells us about the setting. He orders the reader to listen to her 'melancholy' sounds.

In the second stanza, he compares the girl's voice to a Nightingale's. In fact, he thinks hers is better. He says that her voice is so wonderful and powerful that it can be heard from far away (obviously an exaggeration since at the end he doesn't physically hear it when he moves away).

In the third stanza, he admits that he doesn't really understand what the words of her songs mean. He starts hypothesizing about their meaning. Maybe she's singing about old battles or about her pains or things going on in other places.

In the fourth stanza, he stops hypothesizing and pays attention once again to the song. He says that it doesn't matter what she's singing about since it's so beautiful. Even though he likes listening to her, he doesn't linger any longer than he has to. He moves on with her memory in his heart. He clearly doesn't make a strong emotional connection with her. He just treats her as something to pass the time with. Her voice is a type of entertainment for him. I'm not saying that he's mean or anythings but to me, he just seemed like a tourist (which he was) who got pleasure out of her voice and wanted to remember it.