Simple Truths: Experience and Feeling in Wordsworth’s “We are Seven”
William Wordsworth’s poem “We are Seven” displays a battle of wills between man and
child on the subject of death, meditates on the “perplexity and obscurity which in childhood
attend our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that notion” (292). Thus, the
rustic young girl, who speaks a “philosophical language” of “experience and regular feelings,”
understands a truth unknown to the speaker. As the child is closer to nature and to God, she
understands that the death of the body is not necessarily a final death.
To highlight the differences between adult and child, the speaker deliberately emphasizes
the girl’s youthful characteristics. In line six he carefully notes her age as “8 years old.” He
repeatedly uses the adjective “little”: he describes her as a “little cottage girl,” then addresses her
as a “little maid” in line 13. The imagery presents a wild, undoubtedly child-like appearance
with hair “thick with many a curl/That cluster’d round her head.” The arrangement of the curls
connotes innocence: its disheveled mass circles her head like a halo. Wordsworth also
emphasizes the sublime combination of youth and beauty as the speaker admits, “Her beauty
made me glad,” which establishes a level of comfort between them before their debate begins.
She reveals her understanding to both the speaker and the reader during her lengthy, selfassured explanation of her relationship with her siblings. During her speech, Wordsworth is
careful to note that the child does, in fact, understand that her siblings have passed. She gives
their graves a tangible location: they are “twelve steps or more from my mother’s door.” Here,
she qualifies this location with a number, just as she qualifies the number of family members,
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conveying a simplistic, but logical understanding of their deaths. In addition, she also recounts
her sister Jane’s passing in perhaps one of the more eloquent lines from her dialogue: “In bed
she moaning lay,/Till God released her of her pain.” These lines not only reveal her mature
understanding of death, they also demonstrate the child’s relationship with God, as she
characterizes him as a benevolent figure. Although the child faced grief in her sister’s passing,
she also understands its necessity. This conveys the child’s connection to the spiritual in terms of
both God and to nature.
During this speech, the child also describes the role her deceased siblings play in her life.
Her lengthy speech begins, in fact, when she is prompted by the speaker’s argument: “You run
about, my little maid,/Your limbs they are alive.” In reply she explains that she lives in the
presence of her deceased siblings. She admits that she engages them in activity as she “sit(s) and
sing(s) to them.” Throughout her lengthy dialogue, she uses a variety of active verbs to convey
how she continues to live in the presence of those siblings. Harkening back to Wordsworth’s
praise of plainer and empathic language, her verbs are one syllable words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
In Wordsworth’s philosophy, this conveys a connection to one’s feelings, which significantly
strengthens the credibility of her knowledge. Her verbs become increasingly active as her
speech continues. She begins with sedentary activities: in addition to sitting and singing, she
also “knit(s)” and “hem(s)” in the presence of her siblings. However, towards the end of the
poem she describes pure, energetic, youthful activity as she “plays(s)” and “run(s) and slide(s)”
near their graves. The girl understands that her siblings continue to have a presence in her life as
time passes. She conveys the passage of time in her speech. For example, she and her brother
play “all the summer dry”. And would run and slide “when the ground was white with snow”
(57).
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In addition to its plainer and, therefore, superior style, the child’s language contrasts the
speaker in tone, as well. Wordsworth portrays the girl in a much more sympathetic light than the
exasperated speaker. The child’s tone is upbeat and matter of fact. The speaker, in his
impatience, chooses callous words. He repeats the word “dead” twice to emphasize his point
when he exclaims, “But they are dead; those two are dead!/Their spirits are in heaven!” (65-66).
He almost taunts the child with this harsh truth; however, the child remains unshaken by this, a
further testament to her simplistic nature and knowledge of the truth.
The speaker further establishes his differences from the girl in his role throughout the
conversation. As the questioner, he conveys his own frustration and failure of comprehension.
Essentially, his lack of understanding engages the girl in a contest of wills. He refuses to
understand the child’s perception of death as she refuses to submit to the wills of his questioning.
The fact that she has the proverbial “last word,” however, is rather telling. It is she, not the
speaker, who utters the last line of the poem. In the final stanza, the speaker expresses his
exasperation as he exclaims, “But they are dead; those two are dead!” (65). A worthy debating
partner, she mirrors his emphatic reply, using an exclamation point as well when she exclaims,
“Nay, we are seven!” (69). The placement of this line is extremely important: she has the last
word in their battle of wills. The speaker even admits that “The little Maid would have her will”
(68). Indeed she does as she leaves the reader with the final thought of the poem. In fact, her
vehement claim encloses the text like book ends as the title and last line both announce “We are
seven.”
This frame reveals Wordsworth’s stance on the debate between adult and child as it is the
first and last thought he offers to the reader. Wordsworth does not end the poem with the frame
he seemingly establishes in the first stanza, a dialogue with “dear brother Jim.” His choice in
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ending with the child’s words is deliberate. The last line of the poem, then, is perhaps an answer
to the speaker’s initial question, which he asks in the first stanza: “A simple child, dear brother
Jim,/That lightly draws its breath,/And feels its life in every limb,/What should it know of
death?” (1-4). This question frames the narrative like a book end, closing with the child’s
answer.
Although it is not entirely clear whether the child’s words convince the obstinate speaker,
Wordsworth’s intention remains clear: the child possesses an understanding of death that the
adult speaker lacks. According to the sagacious young child, one’s presence remains after the
physical death of the body. This young “cottage girl” possesses a truth that the adult speaker
cannot comprehend or has long forgotten. Her language of “experience and regular feelings”
commands the attention of both reader and speaker and conveys a simple truth. By poem’s end,
the reader cannot help but agree that they indeed “are seven.”
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