This post is about the line by line analysis of My Heart Leaps Up written by William Wordsworth. In this post you will find out the complete summary of the poem in a easy to understand language. Moreover you will find some extra information about the poet as well as the poem in this post which you will certainly find helpful. Let us find the line by line analysis of My Heart Leaps Up written by William Wordsworth.
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 the father of the Man, And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
ABOUT THE POET
William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who had helped to launch the Romantic Age in English Literature. He was born in Cockermouth, U.K., on 7th April 1770.
He took his last breathe on 23rd April 1850, at Rydal Mount and Gardens, U.K.
He married Mary Hutchinson and had three children, named Dora, Catherine Wordsworth, and Anne Caroline Wordsworth.
He was one of the founders of English Romanticism and is always remembered as a spirituality port and also a poet with epistemological speculation. Wordsworth’s first poetic study began when he was a kid in grammar school. William Wordsworth is always best known for his ‘Lyrical Ballads’, ‘The Prelude’, and many more.
Here, the poem, “My Heart Leaps Up” is one of the famous poems of William Wordsworth ad is also a short lyrics poem which also makes it easy to understand and feel the real meaning of the poem in a vast way.
This poem, “My Heart Leaps Up” is alike other poems of that era which speaks about the inspiration for nature. The speaker in this poem describes the feeling of joy upon seeing a simple rainbow.
ABOUT THE POEM
This poem “My Heart Leaps Up” has been written by William Wordsworth which signifies the vast meaning of freedom in the poem “My Heart Leaps Up” is also known as “The Rainbow”, is a British Romantic Poem, which had been written by our famous British poet, William Wordsworth. This poem was written on March 26th, 1862, and was later published in 1807 as part of William Wordsworth‘s poems, in ’ Two Volumes ’. This poem also encourages and appreciates the main importance of carrying a child-like enthusiasm and having the thought of wonder throughout his life.
LINE BY LINE ANALYSIS OF MY HEART LEAPS UP By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
LINE BY LINE ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
LINE 1-2
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
In the poem, “My Heart Leaps Up”, the first two lines develop an event that prompts the remaining lines of the poem. In the Poem, the poet describes how his heart leaps up whenever he used to see a rainbow in the sky. The poet loves watching the rainbow in the sky to such an extent that, instead of simply analyzing the beauty of the rainbow, the poetry focuses on the personification of his reactions. He describes his reaction in such a manner that it has given a shape of personification to his thoughts and feelings.
He had done it when he said that, his heart ‘leaps’. In normal human life, no one heartbeat leaps up but he had reflected that to, show his love and affection towards nature, which he had been bearing since his childhood. The innocent behaviour of the poet is clear through the beginning of the poem.
The leaping of the heart also denotes a sudden and spontaneous reaction of joyousness that the speaker holds while seeing a rainbow in the sky
Here, in this poem, the poet had used the format of Iambic tetrameter in his first line.
My heart leaps up when I behold ;
LINE 3-4
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
The poet these lines describe that his feelings for the rainbow was the same since he was in his childhood. His joyous and in lighting behavior on seeing a rainbow in the sky, and also, feeling a natural beauty, was amazing. The type of wondering sense had developed in his mind since he was in his childhood. The poet is a fan of nature since his childhood.
Here, in these two lines of the poem, both the lines start with ’so’, which signifies that these lines are Anaphora. This signifies that these two lines are greatly emphasized by the poet.
My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth
LINE 5-6
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
In These two lines of the poem, the poet had reacted to his extremes. His feelings and love for the natural world and the beautiful rainbow in the sky led him to feel the eternity of life. As initially we found him telling that he would prefer to live his life to the fullest and enjoy the beauty of this world and of the beautiful rainbow in the sky. But, later in this part of the poem, he said that he would rather prefer to die, by his words, “Or let me die!”. He does not want to see his world of beauty turning into a land of boringness and with unambitious nature.
LINE BY LINE ANALYSIS OF MY HEART LEAPS UP By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
LINE 7
The Child is the father of the Man;
This line has great significance in this poem. It is the most important line of the poem which tells us a deeper meaning regarding the thoughts of the poet. The post here uses this line as a Metaphor to signify its value to the readers. Through this line in the poem, the poet might have tried to describe the scene that, all the men were once a child and all men have always a child in their minds. The difference is that, due to this extreme scheduled life, people forget to reveal their inner sense of children which might have gone buried.
The poet here tries to dignify the matter that all human being grows up from children and the give birth to children. This is always a man or the parents who become a child’s first teacher or a mentor or a guide. This the poet wants to say that, it is the first duty of a parent to teach their children the true value of nature and to express with them the real beauty of Rainbow. Children always reveal the world according to their imaginations. People also should learn to imagine and reveal the world even at this age of their life. According to Wordsworth, the children have an unending sense of curiosity within themselves which they use to discover and reveal their way of imagination and their point of view regarding this natural world.
LINE 8-9
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
These are the last two lines of the poem. It also has a great significance in this poem. Wordsworth, through these lines of his poem, describes his love for beautiful nature. The poet wants that every single day in this world, he would have the opportunity to enjoy the perfect beauty of nature. He would rather adore all the beauty throughout his remaining days in this world full of beauty.