We Are Seven

Is Wordsworth the "I" in this poem? Don't just answer "yes" or "no"--support your answer with references to the text and the material I provide above. In doing this, also explicate the poem, keeping in mind that it's a dialogue, and relate the rest of the poem to the opening stanza.

Wordsworth is in the fact that the speaker can not understand the logic of the child initially. I feel he very much relates to the speaker. Our poet starts with the final line in the final stanza when the speaker had given up trying to explain to the Girl why she is wrong and he feels he is right. He still does not accept it, but it sounds that he will accept that she will not agree with him. "'Twas throwing words away; for still/The little Maid would have her will" He even knows here that she won't agree as he speaks out. This leads us to believe that the poet went into this knowing the frustration of the speaker.

We also see him in his admiration of the child. At the start he speaks of her fair eyes and her beauty, going as far to say that "Her beauty made me glad" which is not at all a matter of enjoying the beauty of the child both in her appearance and in her spirit. While our Speaker gets frustrated with this girl, he continues to try with her, explaining that her two siblings are gone so she is no longer of seven children. Where he suggests that she is alive because she can move and live, "You run about, my little Maid//Your limbs they are alive" she counters that their graves are alive, "Their graves are green, they may be seen" and though I'm sure in her mind she understands that they no longer function and are not alive, she also does not see them as gone from her family either.

So in the end, the speaker is the poet, but not explicitly. The poem itself is actually sort of sweet in the way it flows with the ABAB fashion. You do get the feeling of being part of a discussion with a child who fully believes that she is correct. Not that she's wrong, of course.