My heart leaps up
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 father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
"My Heart Leaps Up" is a short lyric poem by the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. It was written on March 26, 1802 (while Wordsworth was living at Dove Cottage in the scenic Lake District of northern England, according to the diary his sister Dorothy kept of their day-to-day lives), and later published in 1807 as part of Wordsworth's Poems, in Two Volumes. Like many of his poems from this period, "My Heart Leaps Up" was inspired by nature, as the speakers describes the feeling of joy upon seeing a simple rainbow. The poem also appreciates the importance of carrying child-like enthusiasm and wonder throughout life, an idea that Wordsworth returns throughout much of his work.
Summary
My heart skips a beat whenever I see a rainbow in the sky. This has happened to me for as long as I can remember—it happened when I was a child and it still happens to me now as an adult. If I no longer feel the same joy upon seeing a rainbow when I am an old man, I'd rather not live anymore. Childhood teaches people the simple lessons they should carry with them for the rest of their lives. I want to feel a childlike sense of wonder upon seeing the natural world every day of my life.
Themes
The Importance of Childhood Wonder
"My Heart Leaps Up" describes the pure delight the speaker feels upon seeing a rainbow. This joy prompts the speaker to reflect on the passing of time and the significance of childhood. It is in childhood, the poem argues, that people first feel a sense of powerful awe and wonder at the natural world around them. In turn, adults should strive to maintain the pure, enthusiastic reactions to the natural world they felt as children. Such unbridled appreciation for nature, the poem argues, makes life worth living.
The poem begins in the present tense: the speaker says his heart "leaps up" when he sees a rainbow. This reaction to the sight of the rainbow is not a new or unknown feeling, however. Rather, the speaker has had the same reaction to seeing a rainbow for as long as he can remember. The joy the speaker feels is the same joy he felt as a child, which the poem marks by switching to the past tense in line 3 ("So was it when my life began"). The speaker takes comfort in realizing that he hasn't lost his childlike sense of pure, unfiltered wonder upon noticing the beauty of nature.
The rainbow thus makes the speaker feel connected not only to nature, but also to his past self. This sense of continuity from childhood to adulthood, in turn, gives the speaker hope for a happy old age. Just as he has felt joy upon seeing a rainbow from childhood through adulthood, he claims that he will continue to feel that same joy in his old age, signified by the switch to the future tense in line 5 ("So be it when I shall grow old").
Furthermore, the speaker claims that it is through the experience of childhood that he learned to feel the joy he does at the natural world. Turning the idea of parenting on its head, the speaker suggests that childhood teaches people how to appreciate the simple wonders of the natural world. While adults tend to have more knowledge, experience, skills than children, children are closer to nature and do not regulate their reactions to it. If thunder makes a child feel afraid, that child might cry or hide. Similarly, the rare, colorful sight of a rainbow might give a child an unexpected thrill. A child's innocent, almost religious enthusiasm for nature is what the speaker means by "natural piety" in the final line. The speaker does not want to become jaded or immune to the powers of nature over time, but instead hopes to maintain the child-like enthusiasm for the natural world.
The speaker hopes to keep his childlike appreciation of nature so much that, in line 6, he claims he'd rather die without it, suggesting that to lose enthusiasm for the natural world would be to lose what makes life worth living in the first place. The wisdom of childhood is not one that can be learned through years of experience, the poem argues, but is instead the innocence to notice the natural world and let it move you.
The Beauty and Comfort of Nature
A rainbow is a rare, fleeting, and often unexpected gift from nature. Seeing one can feel both exhilarating and comforting—exhilarating for its rarity and comforting for its beauty and implication of hope and wonder (in that rainbows appear after storms and signal a return to brighter days). "My Heart Leaps Up" suggests that nature ought to be appreciated for each of these qualities: the spontaneous beauty it can bring into people's lives, as well as its comforting implication of hope.
It is easy to become jaded with everyday life, moving in and out of the same rooms, walking the same streets, seeing the same people. It is a bit more difficult to get used to something as sudden, beautiful, and momentary as a rainbow. They simply don't show up every day! At the same time, though, rainbows happen over and again even if one can never know when they will happen to see another.
The speaker of "My Heart Leaps Up" captures this tension between exhilaration and comfort. His heart "leaps up" when he sees a rainbow, as if he is seeing one for the first time. This reaction of joy and shock is not new, however, but the same reaction he has always had when seeing a rainbow. The beauty of the rainbow is not just a momentary feeling of delight, but also a familiar, comforting feeling at once again beholding the beauty and hopeful wonder of nature.
"Natural" in the poem's final line not only refers to the natural world in general, but also describes the sort of appreciation the speaker hopes to have for nature. That is, it is a seemingly unrehearsed or effortless appreciation. The speaker's heart leaping up at seeing the rainbow is "natural" in that he doesn't think about it, but merely feels it. It is an effortless, almost instinctual reaction.
At the same time, the speaker wants his appreciation for nature to be something like "piety." Piety is anything but spontaneous or instinctual. Rather, "piety" implies serious religious devotion, often marked by repeated and disciplined acts like daily prayer or worship. By wishing for "natural piety," then, speaker wishes to feel an appreciation for nature that is both spontaneous and practiced.
It is in nature, the poem argues, where one can find a sense of both wonder and comfort at the same time. That he still feels the same joy when he sees a rainbow as an adult that he felt as a child reassures the speaker that he is indeed still living and feeling. His life will go on as it has gone before. Nature helps to remind the speaker that despite the many changes life brings, there is something continuous and larger than himself to appreciate.
내 가슴은 뛰노니 / 무지개
윌리엄 워즈워스
하늘의 무지개를 볼 때마다
내 가슴 뛰노니,
내 어린 시절에도 그러했고
다 자란 오늘에도 매한가지,
쉰 예순에도 그렇지 못하다면
차라리 죽음이 나으리라.
어린이는 어른의 아버지
바라노니 내 하루하루가
자연의 믿음에 매어지고자
윌리엄 워즈워스(William Wordsworth,1770-1850)는 콜리지(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)와 함께 영국 문단의 낭만주의를 주도한 시인이다.
"무지개" (The rainbow)는 다른 제목 "내 가슴은 한없이 뛰네" (My heart leaps up)로도 잘 알려져 있다. 언어와 문장이 간결하고 담긴 메시지가 선명하여 많은 사람들에게 애송되는 시이다.
이 시에 나오는 '어린이는 어른의 아버지' (The Child is father of the Man)라는 표현은 이 시를 유명하게 만들었고, 가장 많이 인용되는 문구의 하나이다.