My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
–William Wordsworth
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Although at first glance “My Heart Leaps Up” by William Wordsworth may appear to be a simple little rhyme, after more profound inspection we shall see that it is actually the result of great toil and the product of remarkable skill. Some think that long, wordy works are more difficult to write than short ones. To the contrary, presenting a complex idea is not such an ominous task when one is allowed as many pages as one wishes in which to do so. It is when that same complex thought is to be distilled until only its potent essence remains that true genius is required. And that is exactly what Wordsworth’s “My Heart Leaps Up” displays. In a few simple lines it encompasses almost all of the themes central to the British Romantic movement. As a matter of fact, “My Heart Leaps Up” is a Romantic poem in both form and structure, as well. Excellent intro.
“My Heart Leaps Up” embodies the following Romantic themes: that of the importance of the emotions; the idea of the importance of nature; the idea of the transience of Joy, whence springs creative power; the concern for the loss of creative power; the theme of the sanctity of childhood; and, lastly, the theme of the exalted position of rustic man.
The idea of the importance of the emotions is represented in the title/first line of the poem. This idea is the foundation of the Romantic movement, which was a reaction to the inordinate emphasis being put on reason, empirical knowledge and book learning by philosophers of the Enlightenment, to the downplay of the emotions, intuitive knowledge and “natural learning,” so to speak.
The importance of nature, another Romantic theme, is touched on in the first and second lines: “My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky:…” Here we have the narrator of the poem telling us of an experience out of doors as he gazes at the sky.
The idea of the transience of Joy, on which Wordsworth and other Romantics often expound, is introduced in line two by the rainbow. A rainbow is an ethereal thing. It looks almost like a stairway to the heavens. It might well symbolize that bond one feels with God when in a state of Joy. This Joy is a precious and exhilarating state, yet it, like a rainbow, is destined to fade.
At the core of this exquisitely brief work we have two themes which are hard to deal with separately, for (in Wordsworth’s view, at least) they are inextricably intertwined. These are: the theme of the quasi holiness of children vs. the pitiful if recompensed state into which we drift as we age, and the concern for the loss of creative power.
The latter of these two ideas is treated in lines five and six: “So be it when I shall grow old, / Or let me die!” The author is expressing a yearning for an ongoing union with Ultimate Reality, a continual sense of harmony with the Universe. He wants always to have a natural affinity for nature, as does a child, and wants always to find creative inspiration. This is a noble quest, but something he senses will not be.
The fear Wordsworth has that Joy will leave him is tied to his philosophy regarding the relationship between Joy and childhood/adolescence.
The author, in retrospect, sees childhood as a time full of awe of nature, innocence and intuitive “certainty.” He sees these things as far superior to the more conscious relationship and more rational knowledge we develop as we grow older. This idea of the child as a wiser philosopher than we bumbling adults is seen in the famous and very eloquently and concisely stated line seven.
There are few who would disagree that there is something precious about childhood which cannot be recaptured later in life. I wish to contradict, however, Wordsworth’s idea that Joy is somehow an inherent part of early life which gradually dissipates as we drift farther and farther from Heaven’s gate (birth). More in accordance with Coleridge’s view, I see Joy as a state which may come and go several times in one lifetime. But it does not really matter whether Wordsworth’s philosophy is “right” or not. The fact is that in believing as he does, he creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even Wordsworth knew that doubt was the venom that killed Joy, yet he embraces the idea that in old age Joy will not return to him. He is, then, in effect, preventing it from doing so. Thus, at least for his own case, he ends up being “right” after all.
With regard to the final theme outlined, although the notion of the significance of the common man is not mentioned directly, it is nonetheless very present. In choosing Classic Ballad Stanza as the vehicle of his message, the author is telling us a great deal about his values. This poetic form is used in the folk songs of the time, the poetry of the rustic people, who are raised to an exalted position by the British Romantic school in its so democratic tradition. The rank these common folk are afforded is similar to that of priests. And, surely, if nature is to be the nave of a new church, there are none better qualified to be the messengers of God than those who live in constant contact with Her.
Structurally, the poem follows the pattern which Wordsworth tells us is intrinsically part of the mechanism of artistic creativity: The poet has an experience in nature which he takes in through the senses. In the case of “My Heart Leaps Up,” the poet beholds a rainbow. He is moved emotionally by the experience. (His heart leaps up!) He sits and reflects on the experience. Using his imagination, a faculty so important to the British Romanticists, he contemplates the event in the context of the past, present, and future (lines three, four and five). Finally, using the skills with which he is endowed as a poet, he attempts to reproduce through language what he has experienced, in hopes of evoking in the reader similar emotions.
Not being a literary critic, Yes you are. What do you think you’ve been doing here? I am hardly in a position to judge this poem’s worth. There is, though, at least one criterion of evaluation at my disposal, i.e., the question of whether the author has achieved what he set out to do. I may presume to know this since, in his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” Wordsworth states that one of his principal objectives is that of producing or enlarging the capability of the human mind to become excited without the “application of gross and violent stimulants….” (Bloom, Trilling, 597, 98). Wordsworth saw such a service as especially important in his time, when urbanization and industrialization were lulling man into a state of spiritual atrophy. The poet is concerned with moving the reader emotionally, perhaps even with prodding him to reestablish his too long dormant relationship with Nature or God. No poet can take each lost soul by the hand and lead him back to God. But, perhaps, by writing in a language that every person could understand, the poet might stir him to feel again. What a great service to mankind that would be! Today, over a century and a half later, the crisis has not diminished. No, in this time when the average American household has the television set on seven hours a day, the situation can only be said to have gotten worse. In our time of virtually total spiritual (and intellectual) decay, it would be a grand accomplishment and mark of success if the poet were to touch and move even one individual.
It is romanticism par excellence ! The love of the beauty of a rainbow, the love of Nature and her myriad plays !The emotions simply jump from one point to another by leaps and bounds.
The mood and the tone both in this poem are a perfect example of that period of the love of the unknown and far, the love of romance, the love of beauty, the love of the bizzarre, the love of far and queer and elevating, in short the love of the festival of beauty of Nature and all her colours !