Prevalence of Death in Childhood
There are two key themes in this poem by William Wordsworth. The first is the prevalence of death in childhood, a state of affairs the speaker laments in the opening stanza, in which he asks what "a simple child" should "know of death." In the poem, it is described how two out of seven children are now buried in the churchyard near a cottage the speaker encounters on his travels; their living sibling, a girl of eight, has therefore been brought into close contact with death. In part, then, the speaker seems to be trying to draw attention to the prevalence of childhood death.
Innocence of Childhood
The other key theme is the innocence of childhood. In the opening stanza it is asked what a "simple child" can possibly understand of death. The speaker goes on to explain how, despite his efforts to explain that dead children are no longer here on earth, the eight year old he is speaking to simply does not understand death. Her innocence is such that she insists adamantly, "we are seven," despite the fact that two of her siblings are buried in the churchyard.
Describing them as Jane and John, the child gives an illustration of her innocence in her tales of how she and John would play around Jane's grave before John, too, was taken. There is no sense from the child that death has taken her siblings away from her; instead, she sings to them, sits on their grave to do her knitting, and considers them very much part of her family. This astonishes the speaker, but it is given as evidence of the child's purity of spirit, not to truly understand or mourn death as adults do.
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