For Wordsworth, the selection of the two birds helps to convey the "other worldly" quality of the solitary reaper's song. The song that the woman sings inspires the speaker, presumably Wordsworth, to think of a world far removed from where he is. The song transports him to a realm where time and space are suspended. In this realm, the birds of the nightingale and the cuckoo help to convey this domain of being in another world. Both birds are not standard in terms of being seen every day. The image of the nightingale conjures up images of a world beyond what is. The cuckoo bird is equally rare. Both birds are depicted as welcoming and inviting to travelers not of their setting. The nightingale's chaunt is linked to travelers among the Arabian sands, while the Cuckoo bird's song travels as far as "the Hebrides."
For Wordsworth, these birds help...
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to communicate the power and sense of mystery that the song has in his mind as he hears it. These birds' significance is to enhance this feel, something that enables the listener to the song and the reader of the poem to be taken into a world far removed from what is. The use of the birds helps to facilitate this transformation of what is into what can be.
Why did Wordsworth choose the nightingale and cuckoo songs to compare with the Solitary Reaper's song?
Because this particular poem is celebrating the relation of a farmer maiden to her endeavors, connected with the rhythms of Nature, and strengthening the relationship to Nature that she has (a frequent worry of the Romantic, that we are losing our connection, due to industrialization, etc.), these two birds are appropriate symbols, for these reasons: 1, they are solitary birds, not flock birds; 2. their melodious and plaintive song is heard in Nature as distinct voices, like the Solitary Reaper’s; 3. these are the very birds Wordsworth hears as he walks. The opening stanza makes this comparison with the solitary reaper herself, singing “by herself”. Because she is singing in a different language (Erse, a Gaelic language) he ask the same question as he asks of the birds he hears on his walks through the Lake District: “Will no one tell me what she sings?” The last couplet speaks to the memory of the nightingale’s and cuckoo’s songs, which stay in Wordsworth’s memory long after the songs fade away (he stretches his experiences to the Hebrides and to the Arabian sands, to underline the point that these solitary sounds haunt all cultures.)