encounter with a humble country girl would not have been considered fit theme for a poem before his time. Then there is the popular ballad form, with the repeated reiterations of the girl's refusal to face the fact that her siblings have left home or died, typical of the repetitions common in English ballads. Lastly the poem is an example of Wordsworth's contention that simplicity and spontaneous emotion are as fit for poetry as the classical themes and ponderously elaborate rhyme schemes and formal rules of previous poetry. Apart from the setting of the poem, however, We Are Seven does little to expound on his persistent preoccupation with nature.
The twin poems of "Expostulation and Reply" and "The Tables Turned", however, take the contrast between the wisdom from books and what Wordsworth felt to be the profounder philosophical messages of nature as his central theme. The first of the two poems involves Wordsworth's "good friend Matthew" chiding the poet for his apparent idleness. "
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