 We are Seven by Willem Wordsworth read for LibreBox.org by Garfield DeSousa A simple child your brother Jim that lightly draws its breath and feels its life in every limb What should it know of death? I 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 She had a rustic woodland air and she was wildly glad Her eyes were fair and very fair. Her beauty made me glad Sisters and brothers little maid. How many may you be? How many seven in all she said and wondering looked at me and Where are they? I pray you tell She answered seven of me and two of us at Conway 12 and two are going to sea Two of us in the churchyard lie my sister and my brother and in the churchyard cottage I dwell near them with my mother You say that two at Conway dwell and two are going to sea Yet you are seven. I pray you tell sweet maid how this may be Then did the little maid reply Seven boys and girls are we two of us in the churchyard lie beneath the churchyard tree You run about my little maid Your limbs they are alive if two are in the churchyard laid then ye are only five The graves are green. They may be seen the little maid replied 12 steps or more from my mother's door and they are side by side My stoppings there I often knit my kerchief there I hem and there upon the ground I sit I sit and sing to them and often after sunset sir when it is light and fair I take my little Poringa and eat my supper there The first had died was little Jane in bed. She morning lay till God released her of her pain and then she went away So in the churchyard she was laid and all the summer dry together around her gravy played my brother John and I and When the ground was white with snow and I could run and slide My brother John was forced to go and he lies by her side How many are you then said I if they two are in heaven the little maid did reply Oh master. We are seven, but they are dead those two are dead their spirits are in heaven It was throwing words away for still the little maid would have a will and said Nay, we are seven End of poem this recording is in the public domain Year that trembled by Walt Whitman read for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharp Year that trembled and reeled beneath me your summer wind was warm enough yet the air I breathed froze me a Thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darkened me Must I change my triumphant songs said I to myself must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled and sullen hymns of defeat and of poem This recording is in the public domain