THE SOLITARY REAPER
(From Poems, 1807)

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;—

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Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

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The poet seems to mean simply the quiet, peaceful fields of the more remote country districts.

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 110
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind,-

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Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 125 Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

? The stage on which men and women are exhibited in various moods and whims. The quotation is from Daniel's Musophilus.

3 Wordsworth tells us that at times the external world became vague and unreal to him, and adds: "Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality." This questioning of the reality of the world, this occasional feeling that things of the senses are falling from us, vanishing, suggests to Wordsworth the immortality of the soul; and it is for these experiences that he is chiefly thankful.

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"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD”

(From Poems, 1807)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

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What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now forever taken from my sight,

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Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;

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In the faith that looks through death 185 In years that bring the philosophic mind.

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I'm stuck

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. ]

"SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT" (From Poems, 1807) Yort.

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes are stars of Twilight fair;

But all things else about her drawn

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;