via THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850). DEAR NATIVE REGIONS* Dear native regions, I foretell, Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest On the dear hills where first he rose. WE ARE SEVEN† -A simple Child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. & TRANSFER FROM 8 She had a rustic, woodland air, Her eyes were fair, and very fair; "Sisters and brothers, little Maid, "How many? Seven in all," she said "And where are they? I pray you tell." "Two of us in the church-yard lie, "You say that two at Conway dwell, Yet ye are seven!-I pray you tell, Then did the little Maid reply, "You run about, my little Maid, If two are in the church-yard laid, "Their graves are green, they may be seen,' The little Maid replied, Wordsworth thought it worth while to print this "extract from the conclusion of a poem""Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, which was written, at the age of sixteen. And they are side by side. just before he left his school at Hawkshead. It both reveals his strong local attachment and anticipates his reliance upon what be-My stockings there I often knit, recollected in tranquillity." This, and the two poems that follow it, were among those contributed by Wordsworth to the joint volume of Lyrical Ballads which he and Coleridge published in 1798 (see p. 428; also Eng. Lit., pp. 232-235). This poem was written to show "the obscurity and perplexity which in childhood attend notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that notion." And there upon the ground I sit, And sing a song to them. When it is light and fair, 40 48 |