we are seven

In “We are Seven” a man comes across a young girl and begins a conversation. The girl is eight years old, which is also the age Wordsworth was when his mother died. The speaker cannot accept that the young girl still feels she is one of seven siblings even after two of her siblings have died even though she now lives at home alone with her mother. The poem begins with the question of what a child should know of death and at first it seems as if the little girl cannot quite conceptualize death. In fact she seems to be in denial about the deaths of her siblings, especially because she continues to spend time with them and sing to them. However, at the end it seems as though the little girl understands more about life and death than the speaker. She is unwilling to cast her dead siblings out of her life and instead accepts change as a part of nature and continues to live her life as positively as she can. This mirrors the conclusions drawn in “Lines Written in Early Spring” in that, the young girl and the speaker of “Lines Written in Early Spring” have come to terms with nature and the pain it brings- the fact that “man has of man.” In “Lines Written in Early Spring” nature, like the young girl, is described as “fair,” with the capacity to make decisions and experience joy. In the end, nature or the young girl is the stronger force and the speaker or humanity fails in rejecting nature or sticking to his miserable ways of thought. In “Lines Written in Early Spring” the speaker is distraught at the notion of perfecting nature and is driven to question the mistakes of humanity. In “We are Seven” the speaker is also distraught by the young girls denial of her dead siblings and instantly feels compelled to question her as to how she can still believe she has seven siblings. Wordsworth describes the girl as having a “woodland air” to liken her to nature because youth, like nature, should not be tainted or corrected.