summary of Solitary Reaper
In the first stanza the speaker comes across a beautiful girl working alone in the fields of Scotland (the Highland). She is "Reaping and singing by herself." He tells the reader not to interrupt her, and then mentions that the valley is full of song.
The second stanza is a list of things that cannot equal the beauty of the girl's singing:
In the third stanza the reader learns that the speaker cannot understand the words being sung. He can only guess at what she might be singing about:
In the fourth and final stanza the speaker tells the reader that even though he did not know what she was singing about, the music stayed in his heart as he continued up the hill: