Explain alone she cuts and binds the grain, and sings a melancholy strain
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The Solitary Reaper Questions and Answers
by William Wordsworth
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After reading the given stanza, discuss the pictures that come to your mind. "alone she cuts, and binds the grain and sings a melancholy strain: O listen! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound."
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OLEN BRUCE eNotes educator | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR
The image that comes to mind after reading the first stanza is a lone woman cutting a crop in the highlands of Scotland. She is alone in a field and is cutting a grain, perhaps rye, and tying the sheaves of the grain together into a bundle. While she steadily works, she sings a song that is sad in tone. It could be a song in Gaelic, as she's in Scotland, and it's filled with sadness. The sound of her singing carries across the vale, or deep valley. The overall picture that comes to mind is a young woman, dressed simply in homemade clothing, who is leaning into the grass and cutting with a long, sharp knife and binding bundles of grass with another piece of grass. By herself, she sings a lovely, mournful song with abandon, and the song carries across the beautiful valley to its very edges. The effect is haunting.