As the poem opens, the speaker wonders aloud what a living, breathing child would know about death. The speaker uses very delicate language to describe such a child, who breathes "lightly" and is full of life "in every limb." The consonance among muted, euphonic /l/, /f/, /th/, and /s/ sounds in this passage contributes to its gentle feel. Meanwhile, assonant short /ih/ and long /i/ sounds draw the reader in and create a sense of harmony:
———A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
In light of this calm, idyllic atmosphere, it might come as a surprise when the final word in this stanza reveals that the poem's subject is death. In fact, the end rhyme between "breath" and "death" directly contrasts the liveliness of the child with an understanding of death. As such, the poem's initial quatrain creates tension between childhood frivolity and the grim realities of death.
In doing so, the speaker suggests that the child who will appear in the coming lines does not have a strong grasp of death. Moreover, the speaker uses a rhetorical question ("What should it know of death?") to raise doubts about the child's credibility. Plus, the language that he uses to describe the child—particularly "simple" and "it"—dehumanize and belittle the girl before she is even introduced.
Finally, the opening lines begin to establish the poem's form. Here is a look at their iambic (unstressed-stressed) meter:
———A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
These lines also establish the poem's ABCB rhyme scheme. As such, this quatrain resembles a ballad.
That said, ballads typically alternate between lines of eight and six syllables, and the first line of this stanza contains only four. Therefore, the dashes that precede it suggest that the poem starts midway through the line, transporting the reader directly into the speaker's daydream, thought, or recollection.