We Are Seven

Death is a constantly recurring motif. It is announced in the first stanza, albeit with some irony. The adult, describing the “simple” (Line 1) child, asks, “What should it know of death?” (Line 4). It turns out that the child, although only eight years old, already has encountered death twice. Not only that, she has an understanding of death that is quite different from that of the adult, and one which he cannot grasp. The poem centers on the incontrovertible fact that two of the girl’s siblings have died. The process of dying is described in the stanza devoted to the suffering of the girl’s sister, Jane. The little girl also mentions the graves, which are covered by grass. She mentions God, and the adult mentions heaven, both in connection with death, and the narrator’s final words emphatically convey what to him is an unarguable truth: “But they are dead; those two are dead!” (Line 65). Apart from the first stanza, this is only the second time that the word “death,” “dead,” or “died” is used; for the most part the girl employs euphemisms, such as “in the churchyard lie” (Line 21), but the specter of death is nonetheless present throughout.