Secondary 1 - Poetry

‘Solitary Reaper’ by William Wordsworth

The Poet:
William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in the Lake District of England. His mother died when he
was eight ad his father died when he was thirteen. He went to college from 1787-1791 at
Cambridge. In 1792, Wordsworth was in France, in the middle of the French Revolution.
In 1795, he met the philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge and one of the great friendships of
literary history began. In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which
contains romantic poetry about nature. In he defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of power
feelings” and that it took its origin “from emotion recollected in tranquility”.
In 1810, his friendship with Coleridge broke up and two of his children died. In 1813, he
was given a good job in the government and moved back to the Lake District, where he loved to go
for long walks. But he no longer wrote beautiful poetry - some called his poetry from this period
‘stuffy’ and egotistical. He was made Poet Laureate in 1843, but by then his wife was seriously ill
and in 1847, his favourite daughter Dora died. The poet himself died of influenza after taking a
walk in the cold March weather on April 23,1850.

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 travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er has 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 number flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of today?
Miss Gihan
Secondary 1 - Poetry

Some natural sorrow, loss or pain

That has been, and may be again.

What’ever 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 listen’d motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Miss Gihan