THE SOLITARY REAPER
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.
Choose the most appropriate option :
In the poem, the girl's voice has been compared with that of a Cuckoo-bird.
Identify the figure of speech, from the options given below.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Simile
Simile:
- A simile openly compares two different things, usually with "like", "as" or "so ... as".
- The two things stay separate; the poet says that one is like the other, or better or worse than it.
- In "A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard / In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird", the girl's voice is set beside the cuckoo's song and declared more thrilling than it: an open comparison.
Example: Her smile was as bright as the morning sun.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Personification — Incorrect. Personification gives human qualities to a non-human thing; here a human voice is compared with a bird's song, and the bird is given no human quality.
Example: The wind whispered through the trees.
Option 2: Oxymoron — Incorrect. An oxymoron puts two opposite words together; no such pair occurs in these lines.
Example: There was a deafening silence in the hall.
Option 3: Metaphor — Incorrect. A metaphor says that one thing is another ("her voice is a cuckoo's call"); the poem does not identify the voice with the bird's song but compares the two openly.
Example: The classroom was a zoo when the teacher left.
Contrast: a simile says that one thing is like another (or more or less than it); a metaphor says that one thing is another.