Wole Soyinka - Part Two

Here is one writer who vehemently believed in a democratic future for his country. Wole Soyinka is from a country which witnessed nine military coups from 1966 to 1993 coupled with violent clashes between Christians and Muslims. A writer who used his words (the only weapon he had) to influence the public mind. He wrote even knowing very well that little can be done to change the condition of his country. He says, ‘Futility stared in the face, but inaction was far more intolerable’. 

He was always reminded about his mother’s aphorism ‘The trying is all’. In his memoir which is titled as “You Must Set Forth at Dawn,” Soyinka recounts tales from his life and his journey as a writer. 

The book is dedicated “To all my stoically resigned children. And to my wife, Adefolake, who, during the season of a deadly dictatorship, demoted me from the designation of Visiting Professor to that of Visiting Spouse ..." The memoir presents WS as a political activist and how he was deeply involved in the politics of Nigeria. WS also was ‘creatively restless’ and he had the pains of a retired author who is also a Nobel Prize winner. After his return from the US, he had spent lots of time at his home in Abeokuta which is an only one-hour drive from Lagos. WS talks about his prison memoir titled as ‘The Man Died’ was not so popular with the regime and it unofficially banned from circulation. 

In the chapter titled as ‘For those who Went Before’ - WS talks about the death of his friend Femi Johnson. He died in Wiesbaden in Germany. His body was brought to Nigeria and WS was accompanying the coffin. WS didn’t want to leave Femi’s body in Germany ‘in that foreign land like a stray without ties of family and friends. He describes the burial - ‘I came back down to earth only when he was himself within the earth of his choice, earth that he had made his own, Ibadan’. WS records his thoughts about life in exile - he was a ‘restless’ exile from the year 1994. 

The Word, The World and the Writers - Wole Soyinka - Part 1

                                 

Was reading the travelogue of Benyamin – ‘Marquez Ellatha Macondo’ ( Macondo without Marquez) yesterday. The book is about the travels of the author through Tanzania, Latin America, Germany, Poland and other European countries. There is a chapter in which he discusses his experience of attending the Berlin International Literary Festival. The festival has been blessed by the presence of various famous authors from around the world and one of the authors is Wole Soyinka. This is a testimony to the influence and literary importance of this Nigerian writer. I was introduced to this writer during my graduate days through that celebrated poem – ‘The Telephonic Conversation ‘which discusses the skin and its colours. The poem was taught in the class amidst the giggles and laughter of the students who failed to grasp the pain of the author as he explains the colour of his skin to a prospective landlady in the UK. The same is true in our own country. The questions posed by the landowners to their prospective tenants are sometimes bordered on police interrogation methods. There is a movie which I plan to watch is all about house hunting in the city where I am living now. It is titled ‘To Let’. 

Wole Soyinka like any other African writer carries the baggage which contains the weight of post-colonialism and pain of a birth of a nation from its shackles. In an exclusive interview with a stone-faced journalist who refers to just one his literary work - ‘The Trials of Brother Jero’, Wole Soyinka shares his political views and his dreams for Africa. What was striking about the interview is that it was aired on the YouTube channel of CGTV - China Global Television Network. Chinese companies have heavily invested in Africa and the Chinese are collaborating with different African governments for building roads and bridges. For me, this is another form of Colonisation. Instead of making the African independent he is again at the mercy of a superpower. Europeans and Americans were primarily concerned with the human resources in Africa which led to the thriving slave markets. ‘China wants everything from Africa: its strategic location, its oil, its rare earth metals, and its fish, leaving African nations indebted to Beijing’- These are the opening lines from an article which appeared in the Forbes magazine. The title of the article is What China Wants from Africa? Everything - https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/05/04/what-china-wants-from-africa-everything/#5dbd1a8b758b. China has replaced the US and the European Union as the main benefactors in Africa.

Wole Soyinka is the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is a poet, novelist, playwright and political activist. He was jailed for 22 months and during that time he recorded his thoughts on a piece of paper which was later published as a book. When Trump was elected as the POTUS, Wole Soyinka threw away his Green Card and returned to his home in Nigeria. Even during his exile days, he was worried about the identity of the Africans and he believed that the African countryside markets reflected the tumult of the African life. Wole Soyinka is also worried about the recent instances of brutality by Africans on Africans. He says that the brutality is on high and he calls it as the ‘Internal inhumanity’. He aspires for democracy for his people and he is against any form of dictatorship. He describes his exile in the US as a ‘political sabbatical’ 

Childhood Memories - Part 1

                                                  

It was dark and  musty under the cot. Kunjumon felt dampness all around him. Outside the monsoon was raging in its full might. He was there for a purpose. He wanted to hide from his grandparents. They had promised him that they will take him to watch the football match. But they didn’t. He was annoyed and felt bad about the whole thing. He wanted to exact revenge on them and the only way to do that was to make them feel scared. He was playing a game based on their love and affection towards him. He decided to go undercover for some time. He knew that they will start searching for him since he was a precious cargo entrusted to their care by his mother and father. He wanted them to feel the pain but he also knew that this self-effacing act will make him sad. 

He made a quick adjustment to his body because the space that he had occupied was too small and it already contained the umpteen miscellaneous  items. There was this diesel tin which smelled good. It was lying there for the past few years. The time when the tractor owned by his grandfather was used for ploughing and tilling the paddy field. Now that contraption is kept permanently in the garage. The labourer who had been the driver went to the Gulf seeking better fortunes and his grandfather couldn’t find someone who was as good as he was.  

In the darkness, he could also see the worn-out edges of a cardboard box which contained miscellaneous stuff. Most of the things belonged to his grandfather. Farming equipment parts, screws, washers, and clamps. The box had a metallic smell to it. He inserted his hand inside to feel some of the items using his bare hands and his fingers brushed against one of the sharp objects and felt the sharpness against his skin. He immediately withdrew his hand and waited impatiently for his grandmother calling out his name. The rain continued to beat against the roof of the house. 

His grandparents are kind of old and they both belong to the same town. They have been living in this house for the past many years. Grandfather was basically a farmer and he owned huge swaths of land in the town. The money he had was never reflected in his demeanour. He went outside without wearing a shirt and he always had a white towel perched on his shoulder. This was the common dress code of farmers in that town. It seems that they were always ready for some action. It was so true about his grandfather. In his morning task of shopping from the market, he normally paid a visit to his farmland and checked on the trees and the plants. Sometimes, Kunjumon too joined him in this quest. His intention was double-folded, to persuade Appachan to buy some sweets from the local bakery and also to watch the different small animals and birds who are the real tenants of the land. He has seen rabbits and mongoose and if he is really lucky, I can see some toddy cats ( palm civets). Grandfather never wore a watch on his wrist. He managed his time without any schedule or lists. Grandmother was much more organized. Being a homemaker, she knew the level of condiments and supplies in the kitchen and she will convey the message to the grandfather who dutifully visited the market to refill the stock. 

They took special care of him and they always bought things exclusively for him and kept it stored in the cellar which was kept under lock and key. The cellar was always out of limits for him. He knew that it contained cakes, biscuits and other savouries. He often had to beg and plead to get the door opened and most of the time it was done when he was fast asleep. He sometimes managed to sneak into the room and survey the edible possessions. He used to ask his grandparents numerous questions about the items that are kept there. That room also was the place where his grandfather stored his farm produce like yam, plantains and even jackfruit. The room had a fruitish snacky smell. He eyes were always on the snacks and rarely did he venture to the corner where the farm produce was kept. His grandmother had to coax him to taste some of the fruits which were really tasty but didn’t look good. He was used to the warnings issued about the need to stop eating the bakery items and the need to eat more fruits and vegetables. 

He was brought back from his reverie into the world of darkness by the distant voice of his grandmother who had started searching for him. It was little beyond his lunchtime and his failure to turn up at the dining area would have prompted the search. He felt so relieved to hear her voice. It was like drawing him back to the safe world. He was at a loss to decide which was greater - his yearning to be with his grandparents and live in the world of safety and comforts or their love for him and the way they took care of him. Listening to the voice which was drawing nearer and nearer, he felt his heartbeat rising and he started feeling guilty about the vanishing act that he had committed. He started visualizing the way he will come out of his hiding covered in cobwebs and dust. He wanted to hide under the cot forever but he couldn’t do it because his grandparents were the only contacts he had with the outside world. He felt really bad and in his desperate condition he called out to his grandmother - ‘Ammama, I am here’. He could hear the quickening footsteps, as his grandmother moved towards the direction of the sound. She opened the door to the room and found him emerging from under the cot. At first, she couldn’t recognize him because he was covered head to toe in cobwebs, dust and loneliness. 

The Word, The World and the Writers - Chinua Achebe - Part 2

                                                       

Recalling his days at the University of Ibadan, he narrates his experience of encountering Professor James Welch. He particularly liked these words of his professor – ‘We may not be able to teach you what you need or what you want. We can only teach you what we know’. Chinua Achebe liked that quote and he still regards those words as the best education that he received from the University. It made him decide on a course of action – ‘He has to go out on his own’. He was a bit critical about the way the Department of English treated his short story which was forwarded to the department as part of a competition. No awards were given to the competition citing the lack of quality of the submitted short stories. Chinua Achebe received a mention about his short story in the competition. Later on, when Chinua Achebe quizzed the lecturer who had organized the prize, she said that there was nothing wrong with the short story.

Achebe describes W.B Yeats as the ‘Wild Irishman’ He liked Yeats’s ‘love for the language, his flow’. Achebe is also a big fan of T.S Eliot whom he describes as someone who has ‘a priestly erudition’. He borrowed the titles of ‘Things Fall Apart’ and ‘No Longer at Ease’ from W.B Yeats and T.S Eliot respectively. 

Describing the hurdles, he had to encounter to publish ‘Things Fall Apart’ Achebe says that the publisher Heinemann received a report which contained 7 words. The seven words were – ‘The best first novel since the war’. That was the first time that the publishers were seeing an African novel. 

The Word, The World and the Writers - Chinua Achebe - Part 1

Looking back at my association with the Nigerian writers, I can easily relate with three of them. One is Chinua Achebe who like Rabindranath Tagore was fascinated by the Irish poet – W.B Yeats to name his first book in his African trilogy as ‘Things Fall Apart’. The story of Okonkwo is one of the ‘BBC’s 100 novels that shaped our world’. I doubt whether Man, whether he is Indian, African or Pakistani is free from the literary shackles of the West. Things Fall Apart is a regular academic entry in the syllabi of universities and schools around the world. I ‘studied’ (never read wholeheartedly) the novel for my master’s programme. I am sure that I read the novel for my internal /semester exam but not for any aesthetic or for the sheer pleasure of reading a novel. Most of the time a novel is introduced as a sample of world literature. The instructor never encourages the students to look beyond the text. Meanwhile, the students are worried only about the exams the results. They are quite contented with some study guides and mediocre summaries. Realization happens at a later stage especially if you are a book lover beyond your studies, that Things Fall Apart is part of African trilogy which includes two other works – No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. According to Achebe, his two other novels, ‘A Man of the People’ and the ‘Anthills of the Savannah’ are spiritual successors to the trilogy.

As part of my intention to delve deeper into the world and personality of Chinua Achebe, I read the interview with the author which appeared in ‘The Paris Review’. The blog contains some interesting ideas and quotes from the interview. The interview was recorded in two sessions in two different locations – one at 92 Street Y and at the author’s home in Upstate New York. The author was wearing the traditional Nigerian clothes. He was in a wheelchair after the car accident which happened in Lagos. He shared his memories about his love for short storied which was there right from his childhood days. He greatly enjoyed the stories told to him, by his mother and his elder sister. Even at school he loved the stories that he read. His parents were evangelists and for 35 years they travelled to different parts of the Igboland to spread the gospel. What he liked in the stories that he read at school was the remoteness of the stories and how ethereal they were. As he became older, he read stories about savages and Whiteman. He always took the side of the Whiteman because for him they were fine, excellent and intelligent. The savages were stupid and ugly. Reading these stories made him realize the danger of not having your own stories. He quotes the great proverb to drive home the point ‘Until the Lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter’. For him, being a writer is almost like being a historian. 

Choi Jin-young's 'To the Warm Horizon’ - Refugee series # 6

                                                             

The last book based on the theme of Refugees that I would like to discuss as part of the series ‘Books and Authors’ is the book by the Korean author Choi Jin-young's titled as ‘To the Warm Horizon’. The book falls under the genre of Lesbian fiction. The excerpt taken from the novel is about Dora and Jina. Both of them are fleeing a pandemic that’s wiped out the country. The book is translated by So. J. Lee. The excerpt presents the predicament of the refugees. To quote from the excerpt “We, who had lost our family and become refugees could not laugh. We had left our jokes and our laughter behind in our hometown”. The relationship between Dori and Jina is the central focus in the excerpt. One word to describe Dori is ‘nonchalant’. It was Jina who persuaded Dori and the little girl Miso to join them in the car. Other members of the group decided her as ‘a cold-hearted girl’. The instant bonding that happened between Dora and Jina is described in these words - I didn’t know Dori’s wounds, and Dori didn’t know mine— perhaps that’s why we could see each other as we were in that moment. It was even possible for us to build a new story of our own.

Poem 4 - Ode to the West Wind – Stanza/Line wise summary

http://www.grahamhenderson.ca/tuesday-verse/Day/7/Year/pb-shelley-ode-to-the-west-wind-1819

Stanza 1

Lines 1-5

• The speaker appeals to the West Wind four times in this first stanza. 
• Lines 1-5 are the first appeal, in which the speaker describes the West Wind as the breath of Autumn.
• Like a magician removing ghosts or evil spirits, the West Wind sweeps away the dead leaves. These dead leaves are multicoloured, but not beautiful in the way we usually think of autumn leaves – their colours are strange and warning and seem almost diseased (like "pestilence-stricken multitudes").

Lines 5-8

• The speaker appeals to the West Wind a second time.
• This time, the West Wind is described as carrying seeds to their grave-like places in the ground, where they’ll stay until the spring wind comes and revives them. The wind burying seeds in the ground is like a charioteer driving corpses to their graves.

Lines 8-12

• Once the West Wind has carried the seeds into the ground, they lie there all winter and then are woken by the spring wind.
• Shelley thinks of the spring wind as blue (or, to be specific, "azure").
• The spring wind seems to be the cause of all the regeneration and flowering that takes place in that season. It blows a "clarion" (a kind of trumpet) and causes all the seeds to bloom. It fills both "plain and hill" with "living hues and odours." It also opens buds into flowers the way a shepherd drives sheep.

Lines 13-14

• The speaker appeals to the West Wind twice more, describing it as a "Wild Spirit" that’s everywhere at once.
• The West Wind is both "Destroyer and Preserver"; it brings the death of winter, but also makes possible the regeneration of spring.
• Now we find out (sort of) what the speaker wants the wind to do: "hear, oh, hear!" For the moment, that’s all he’s asking – just to be listened to. By the wind.

Stanza 2 

Lines 15-18

• The speaker continues to describe the West Wind.
• This time, he describes the wind as having clouds spread through it the way dead leaves float in a stream. Leaves fall from the branches of trees, and these clouds fall from the "branches" of the sky and the sea, which work together like "angels of rain and lightning" to create clouds and weather systems. 
• There’s a storm coming!

Lines 18-2

• The speaker creates a complex simile describing the storm that the West Wind is bringing. The "locks of the approaching storm" – the thunderclouds, that is – are spread through the airy "blue surface" of the West Wind in the same way that the wild locks of hair on a Mænad (a female follower of Greek God Bacchus) wave around in the air. 
• Thunderclouds are to the West Wind as a Mænad’s locks of hair are to the air.
• A Mænad is one of the wild, savage women who hang out with the god Dionysus in Greek mythology. The point here about Mænads is that being wild and crazy, they don’t brush their hair much.
• The poet reminds us that these Mænad-hair-like clouds go vertically all the way through the sky, from the horizon to the centre.

Lines 23-28

·       The speaker develops a morbid metaphor to describe the power of the West Wind. The wind is described as a "dirge," or funeral song, to mark the death of the old year. The night that’s falling as the storm comes is going to be like a dark-domed tomb constructed of thunderclouds, lightning, and rain.

·       The poet ends by asking the West Wind once again to "hear" him, but we don’t know yet what exactly he wants it to listen to.

                                                 Stanza 3 & Stanza 4
Lines 29-32                          

The speaker tells us more about the West Wind’s wild adventures: the Mediterranean Sea has stayed calm and still during the summer, almost as though on vacation "beside a pumice isle in Baiæ’s bay," a holiday spot for the ancient Romans. But the West Wind has woken the Mediterranean, probably by stirring him up and making the sea rough and stormy.

Lines 33-36 - During his summertime drowsiness, the Mediterranean has seen in his dreams the "old palaces and towers" along Baiæ’s bay, places that are now overgrown with plants so that they have become heartbreakingly attractive. Lines 36-38 - The speaker claims that the "level" Atlantic Ocean breaks itself into "chasms" (gaps) for the West Wind. This is a poetic way of saying the wind disturbs the water, making waves, but it also suggests that the ocean is subservient (a slave) to the West Wind’s amazing powers.

Lines 38-42 - In the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the different kinds of marine plants hear the West Wind high above and "suddenly grow grey with fear" and beat around, harming themselves in the process. Once again, the speaker ends all these descriptions of the West Wind by asking it to "hear" him.

Stanza 4:

Lines 43-47 - The speaker begins to describe his own desires more clearly. He wishes he were a "dead leaf" or a "swift cloud" that the West Wind could carry, or a wave that would feel its "power" and "strength. “He imagines this would make him almost as free as the "uncontrollable" West Wind itself.

Lines 47-51 -The speaker is willing to compromise: even if he can’t be a leaf or a cloud, he wishes he could at least have the same relationship to the wind that he had when he was young when the two were "comrade[s]." When he was young, the speaker felt like it was possible for him to be faster and more powerful than the West Wind.

Lines 51-53 - The speaker claims that, if he could have been a leaf or cloud on the West Wind, or felt young and powerful again, he wouldn’t be appealing to the West Wind now for its help. He begs the wind to treat him the way it does natural objects like waves, leaves and clouds.

Lines 54-56 - The speaker exclaims, "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" He explains that the passage of time has weighed him down and bowed (but not yet broken) his spirit, which started out "tameless, and swift, and proud," just like the West Wind itself.

Stanza 5 

In the fifth stanza, he wants the West Wind to turn him into a musical instrument. He’ll be the instrument, and the West Wind will play its own music on him. They together will sweet, melancholy, autumn music. The poet asks the wind to become him. He wants the wind’s "fierce" spirit to unite with him entirely, or maybe even replace his own spirit. The speaker compares his thoughts to the dead leaves; perhaps the West Wind can drive his thoughts all over the world in the same way it moves the leaves. He describes his own words – perhaps the words of this very poem – as sparks and ashes that the wind will blow out into the world. The poem ends with the question – If death and decay can come at the end of something then there is always a rebirth and chance for hope.

Poem 4 - Ode to the West Wind – Summary and Match the following

Ode is a poem addressed to a person. In Ode to the West Wind, the poet is addressing the West Wind. In the first stanza, the poet appeals to the West Wind four times. He describes the West Wind as the ‘breath of Autumn’. He compares the West Wind to a magician who removes the ghosts or the evil spirits when it sweeps away the dead leaves. The leaves are of different colours. ( ________, ____________, ______________, _______________ ) They look like ‘p_________________ s___________________  m______________. In the second appeal, the West Wind is described as a charioteer driving corpses into their graves. West Wind carries the seeds to their graves likes places in the ground. The seeds will lie there waiting for the Spring season. The wind that blows in the spring awaken the seeds with a clarion call. Spring is described as the ‘sister of West Wind’ Spring is the reason for all the regeneration and flowering. The Spring fills the “hills and plains’ with colours and fragrances. The port describes the west wind as a wild spirit moving everywhere. The poet says that the West wind is both a destroyer and a preserver. It brings the death of winter and also makes it possible the regeneration. The first stanza ends with the poet describing the Wind as “hear oh hear. The poet wants the West Wind to listen to him.  The second stanza the poet talks about West Wind in the sky. The clouds are scattered by the Wind and they fall from the branches of the sky and the sea. These clouds work together to create the angels of ‘rain and lightning’ The approaching storm along with the thunderclouds looks like the hair of a violent Maenad. The clouds move through the sky. The sound that West Wind makes is compared to funeral song for the year that is dying. The night that is falling along with the storm is described as a domed tomb which contains thunderclouds, lightning and the rain. The stanza ends with the poet asking the West Wind to listen to him.  In the third stanza the poet describes the actions of the West Wind on the Mediterranean Sea. The sea was asleep in summer and it dreamt about ‘the old palaces and towers’. which exist under the water near Baiae’s Bay. The West Wind has woken the Mediterranean Sea, by stirring the surface of the sea with rough waves and a storm. The West Wind influences even the Atlantic Ocean. The different kinds of marine plants hear the West Wind high above and suddenly grow angry with fear. The Poet ends the stanza by asking the west wind to listen to him. In the fourth stanza the poet wants the West Wind to lift him like a ‘dead leaf,’ ‘swift cloud’ or even a ‘wave’. He wants to feel the ‘power’ and ‘strength’ of the wind. He wants to be like the ‘uncontrollable’ wind. He wishes to have the same relationship he had when he was young. The stanza ends with the line - I fall _______________________________________________________. Time has made him tired and old, but he wants the West Wind to be ‘timeless, swift and proud’. In the fifth stanza, he wants the West Wind to turn him into a musical instrument. He’ll be the instrument, and the West Wind will play its own music on him. They together will sweet, melancholy, autumn music. The poet asks the wind to become him. He wants the wind’s "fierce" spirit to unite with him entirely, or maybe even replace his own spirit. The speaker compares his thoughts to the dead leaves; perhaps the West Wind can drive his thoughts all over the world in the same way it moves the leaves. He describes his own words – perhaps the words of this very poem – as sparks and ashes that the wind will blow out into the world. The poem ends with the question – If death and decay can come at the end of something then there is always a rebirth and chance for hope.

Poem 3 - ‘O what is That Sound’

‘O what is That Sound’ is a ballad style poem. One of the central ideas of the poem is the frailty (weakness) of human beings. The speaker was frail when he continued avoiding the truth even when it was right in his/her face. The spouse was frail when he/she chose to escape leaving the speaker alone to face the wrath of the soldiers. The speaker of the poem hears a sound down in the valley from his home in the morning. He asks his spouse what that sound was. The spouse replies that it was the marching of soldiers. The rest of the poem continues in this conversational style except for the last stanza. The speaker next asks what the light that keeps flashing was. It is the flash of their weapons dear, says the spouse. Similarly, the speaker continues to question the actions of the soldiers and the spouse gives appropriate answers. The soldiers all the while keep marching towards the speaker’s house. The speaker thinks that they would stop somewhere before, but no; they pass the doctor’s house and the parson’s church and the cunning farmer’s barn, straight towards his house. The spouse says he/she was leaving the speaker now. The speaker, afraid asks him/her if the vows he/she took were all false. The spouse replies that they were all true but still, he/she must leave. And then the soldiers break the door and come into the house with burning eyes. 

Source: https://beamingnotes.com

Poem 2 - The Gift

https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-gift-ideas

      Can you compare these two characters and find 5 words each to describe them?
 How did the lover propose?
 How is the lady described? 
 What are the four words used to describe the lover? 
What happens to the soul of the lover? 
What is the example from cooking used to describe her lover?
What is the tone of the poem?
What lesson does the lady lover teach the lover boy?
How can you describe the poem in one simple line? 
What is the meaning of True Love? 

#	Lady Love	Lover Boy
1	open-minded	selfish
2	sensible	sentimental
3	Freedom	angry
4	mature	possessive
5	fighter/teacher	Immature

Words that matter
Personal
Conversational
3.     Racially
4.     Discriminated
5.     Proposed
6.     Seriously
7.     Sentimentally
8.     Emotionally
9.     Lightly
Southerner
11.  Polite
12.  Chained
13.  Soul
14.  greedy
15.  Disappointed
16.  Disappears
17.  Gifted
18.  Precious
19.  egoistic
20.  narrow-minded
21.  shrinking
22.  expand
23.  selfish
24.  possessive

25.  Alice Walker

Poem 1 - Review questions – The Solitary Reaper – William Wordsworth

https://www.studyrankers.com/2015/03/study-material-of-solitary-reaper.html

• 1.   How does the poet introduce the solitary reaper? 
• 2.     How does the poet compare the song to that of Nightingale and Cuckoo?
• 3.     What according to the poet are the topics of the song that she is singing? 
• 4.     How does the poet leave the girl and her song? 

The poet, in the _______ stanza, invites the reader/listener to look at the Highland Lass who is singing a song standing alone in the field. She is gathering the crops and she is also singing a beautiful song. The poet asks the reader/listener to either stop and listen to the song or leave the place gently. The solitary reaper is cutting, and she is also binding the grain. Her song has got a melancholy tune to it. The whole valley is filled with the intense song of the girl. 

The _______ stanza is about the way the poet left the valley. The poet says that the girl’s song didn’t have an ending. He saw her singing at work, bent over the sickle. He listened to her song, without moving. As the poet moved away, he carried the song in his heart and afterwards the song disappeared. 

In the _______ stanza, the poet is guessing the topics/theme in the song of the reaper. He says that the sad song maybe is about ‘old, unhappy, far-off things and old battles’. The second guess is that the solitary girl is singing about some ‘ordinary sorrow, loss or pain which might have happened in the past and may happen again in the future.

In the _______ stanza, the poet compares the song of the girl to the nightingale’s song. The song is more appealing than that of a nightingale. It is so soothing to the tired travellers taking rest in the shade of the Arabian sands. In the same stanza, the poet compares the song to that of the Cuckoo bird. The singing of the girl is so thrilling that it even broke the ‘silence of the seas’ which lay beyond the Hebrides.