Literary Appreciation: Poetry and Multiple Interpretations

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

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 father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Round each to each by natural piety.

Suggested Interpretations:

• The poet hopes that the ability to appreciate the wonders of nature, which he had at his infancy and right up to adulthood, will continue to be a part of him even when he becomes elderly. He would rather die than have this sense of awe and wonder disappear as he ages. For to him, life becomes meaningless if he were to lose interest in the natural beauty around him.
• What does a Child have that he or she can teach a Man? A Child does not have a jaded view of life. He or she is filled with curiosity and fascination for the things he or she sees around him or her. Hence, these are qualities that the Child has are important in teaching an adult, who may have gradually lost this ability, to appreciate and be filled with wonder at all that surrounds him or her.
• One could go beyond a superficial interpretation and extend the meaning of the poem to include a person having an interest in what life has to offer. The person is still able to get excited instead of seeing life as being a routine of `yeah, been there, done that!'
• If a person gets excited, then he or she lives! Otherwise, he or she is just as good as a corpse, with no purpose left in prolonging one's existence.
• The Child comes before the Man. One has to be a child before he or she grows into adulthood. Hence, the Child has the basic DNA that is passed on to the Man and which, will aid him in defining his character and his response to life. If he forgets this `father' in him, then he is forgetting the root of his existence. What is this father? And here, as was mentioned earlier, lies the secret to existing: One has to continue to be imbued with the motivation and happiness that a child brings to his or existence.

Do take a second look at the highlighted verbs above. In the next post, we will be going over the tenses and subject-verb agreement.