Natalya Montes

We are Seven

Wordsworth’s W​e are Seven​ is a poem with the topics of life, death and family but

from the understandings of a child. While adults seem to know “everything” in the world,

when a child is asked about the topic of where her siblings are, it explores the little girls

understanding of where her siblings are but also why she picks to say “we are seven”

even when two of them are gone.

When the man in the poem first speaks to the little girl he asks her “Sisters and

brothers, little Maid, How many may you be?” “How many? Seven in all,” she

said…”(13-15) The little girl starts the conversation with the man stating that she has

seven siblings but when she is asked where they are she states that “..two of us at

Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. ‘Two of us in the church-yard lie...(18-21).

Wordsworth gives the poem an understanding of how strong a family bond is to a

child. In the poem the little girl gives the examples of her love for her siblings that not

even death can separate her love from them . The little girl keeps stating that "we are

seven" because the reader can understand that the little girl does not want to accept the

fact that her sister and brother are no longer alive but in her mind she still counts her two
siblings as part of the family but understands that they dead but still wants to spend time

with them”‘My stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the

ground I sit, And sing a song to them.”(41-44) The little girl gives the example here that

her love for her siblings live on even though they are gone and shows how innocent a

child love is for family. The little girl speaks as if doing these things are normal, as if she

is spending time with them as if they were alive. Just as the reader may come to think the

little girl is crazy she finally admits after being asked again and again how there are seven

of them when she has said that two lie in a church-yard she says "those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!’(64-65) the little girl expresses that she understands her

siblings are no longer alive but even if they are dead, death can not keep her apart from

being by their sides.

William Wordsworth uses this poem to tell a story of how innocent a child’s

understanding about topics such as death,life and family when being questioned by an

adult who doesn’t agree upon the answers he receives from a little girl. As the reader, it is

easy to understand how an adult would not see the situation the same as a child because

children have different understandings about how things in the world work but the little

girl in the poem understood where her siblings were but wanted to keep her love for them

alive.