Wordsworth

The two Wordsworth poems “I wandered lonely” and “The solitary reaper” compliment each other in many, many ways. Primarily, I feel that the experience of the poet – the shared relating of a simple event having a profound impact on the author (Wordsworth)long after the moment of experience has passed, is the binding factor behind the fact that both poems do indeed share a common theme.

It is this theme that summarizes the wealth of the simple incidents – one being that of seeing a crowd of daffodils (“all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils) and beholding (“her single in the filed, yon solitary highland lass!) a solitary reaper – that makes up the contents of both poems and this is what makes one compliment the other. Both poems take the reader through the experience with the author in a similar manner which accounts for “the solitary reaper” sharing a similar poetic structure with “I wanted lonely as a cloud”. While both poems are composed of 4 stanzas, both poems consists of a description of the event – a visual description of the daffodils, the auditory impact of the melancholy strains, a person expression of the impact made on the author that comes through which his reflection on the beauty of both events, and the profoundness of the magnifying feeling both these simple experiences have had on Wordsworth.

The importance of the cloud comparison in line 1, lies in the fact that the speaker’s’ lack of purpose and feeling of empty, meaningless wandering that floating feeling being his mood, helps the reader to grasp the value then, that the experience that followed would have had on this “lonely” man who later remarks “a poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company” (this is complemented by a similar enhancing of mood in “The solitary reaper” (line 13) – “a voice so thrilling ne’er was heard” or line 9 – “no nightingale did ever chant more welcome notes to weary bands”). Had the poet been in a different mood, the experience would hardly have had the value the scene had to the lonely poet who could not but help gazing – “I gazed – and gazed” at the ten thousand daffodils as they tossed their heads in sprightly dance. This is echoed in “The solitary reaper” – “I listened motionless and still”. Indeed both poems share this characteristic of depicting simple events that have made the author pause – stop and gaze, motionless and still. The suggestion that the daffodils accept the speaker as a companion is successfully dramatized as the golden daffodils are described through imagery as personifications of almost human companionship – as jolly company that makes I almost impossible for the poet to remain in his previous lonely mood that disappears as early as the first two lines of the poem.

If we were to look at “The solitary reaper”, omitting the second stanza would make the poem lose its vitality in expressing the sweetness of the strains of the maiden's song.The poet would miss the relating of the capacity this tune had in welcoming weary travelers with its notes, of thrilling, of breaking the “silence of the seas” (which again makes this poem complement the quiet loneliness” of the poet in Daffodils.) The girl-bird comparison and the resemblance of the bird’s song with the girl’s song which makes the special quality and significance of the tune for travelers who overhear it make it go beyond merely suggesting that the girl’s song is beautiful, can be sensed by the reader, as the nightingale, the cuckoo-bird continue to sing, regardless of what happens around, yet the context in which this singing occurs makes the event have an enchanting, influencing effect on the “poorer” recipients as beholders feel an sense of elevation and upliftment.

Both these poems are personal, beautiful narrations of two different, simple experiences in nature that are so successful in complementing one another and at the same time, making the reader deeply aware of the profoundness of experience on Wordsworth. This justifies how believable is, that the poet remembers the event long after its over when in pensive and vacant mood even thereafter, they still flash upon the inward eye and make Wordsworth’s heart fill up with pleasure.

This is beautifully and greatly complemented by “The solitary reaper”

“And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more”

William Wordsworth’s two poems are beautiful relations of the simplest events, that continue to bring him joy, health, healing. And happiness long after the moment has passed.

© Slow Chills