OK, this is going to be a more ris(ky)que post. (This will be the last parenthetical.) Wordsworth's We Are Seven has been among the shortest and certainly most interesting readings thus far. I will focus on the third stanza in particular.
The old man narrating the story has a very interesting description of the eight year old girl with whom he later converses with. I believe their interaction was significantly more than simple conversing.
He describes her as having a "rustic, woodland air" and as "wildly clad." These words are commonly used to describe things in nature, in their bare state. Perhaps she is dressed in very revealing clothing. Maybe she's entirely naked for that matter. Either way, I believe Wordsworth is suggesting this man is a practicing or aspiring pedophile. I will not go as far as to say that he is married to this young girl. However there seems to be a subtle implication that their relationship is more than "just friends."
Not convinced? Let's take a look at the next line. The wild, unbounded beauty that the old man mentioned makes him "glad." I believe the implication here is that it makes him glad, sexually. Though this word is not necessarily used to mean this, it seems strange that a man would be so happy about the looks of a young girl. Preposterous? Maybe. But a 69-line poem probably has 69 different interpretations, and I doubt I am the first to suggest this.
Perhaps Wordsworth is making a mockery of a bar scene, where a stereotypical man is lured in a by a beautiful women, and he asks her a question to which he gets an earful and then some. Perhaps Wordsworth is making an inside joke to his friend James Tobin, as the sub-notes in the poem suggest. The bottom line, is that there is a very striking suggestion of pedophilic thoughts - if not actions - in the beginning of this poem.
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I think you make the common mistake of thinking that if a poem can mean many things, then it can mean anything. Your interpretation might make sense if you could produce any evidence. Is it that the little girl is "wildly clad?" Surely you remember that in 1798 the word "wild" was more likely to refer to nature than to sexuality. And if "glad" has sexual connotations, they're far down the list below more neutral--even bland--meanings. So you'd have to make a case for this reading, if you really did believe it was valid--and you don't. Assertion isn't argument.
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