THE SOLITARY REAPER

THE SOLITARY REAPER The Solitary Reaper is a poem that acts on the values of Lyrical Ballads by placing praise and beauty in a rustic, natural setting, and by establishing as its source a simple rustic girl. The poem's structure is simple. The first stanza sets the scene; the second offers two comparisons for the music, the third wonders about the context of the songs, and the fourth describes the effects of the songs on …

…transition from one to the other in the third stanza when he mentions a personal and emotional conflict that he faced, and he questions himself if the battle was humbly fought or not. It appears to me that Wordsworth is unable to comprehend the girl's song but he is able to appreciate its tone, its expressive beauty, and the mood it creates within him, rather than its explicit content, at which he can only guess.