My Heart Leaps Up

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My Heart Leaps Up

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
Bound each to each by natural piety.

__________________________

My Heart Leaps Up, sometimes also called The Rainbow, is among the shortest of what are considered to be the poet’s great works. The poem is nine lines, in one stanza, without a set meter, and with a rhyme scheme of ABCCABCDD.

My Heart Leaps Up is about the joy felt by the poet upon seeing a rainbow, and how the joy of the sight has been with him through his entire life. He argues that the love he felt as a child informs his adulthood. Love of nature and romanticism were perhaps more in style during Wordsworth’s time, but the sentiment remains true in the present. Who doesn’t get excited when they see a really clear rainbow? Or better – a double rainbow?

The key line in the piece is found in line 7:

The Child is father of the Man;

After describing his lifelong love of the colorful sky phenomenon, the poet provides this insight. The things he loved when young… he he continues to love. His point is that childhood shapes our adulthood. If this had been the point, I think it would have remained easily defensible. Alas, he continues and clarifies the point further.

The final two lines express the hope that piety in youth (inspired by nature in this case) would thus connect to piety when old. You might argue – and many have – that this insight is utter nonsense. Critics include fellow poets William Blake and Gerard Manley. How can it be that one’s childhood might be described as a time of “natural piety” and thus it might inform and teach the experience of adulthood? You might also consider it foolish to link the child’s feeling of innocent enjoyment over a beautiful scene from nature with piety. Is such a thing as “natural piety” even real or it misconstruing of one state of being for another? I think he is confusing something else for piety.

Childhood can and should be innocent, and I think some confuse innocence with piety, though the distinction is large and important.

innocense

noun

a: freedom from legal guilt of a particular crime or offense
b: freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil : BLAMELESSNESS
c: lack of knowledge : IGNORANCE
… written in entire innocence of the Italian language.—E. R. Bentley
d(1): freedom from guile or cunning : SIMPLICITY
(2): lack of worldly experience or sophistication

pious

noun

1a: marked by or showing reverence for deity and devotion to divine worship
b: marked by conspicuous religiosity
— a hypocrite—a thing all pious words and uncharitable deeds—Charles Reade
2: sacred or devotional as distinct from the profane or secular : RELIGIOUS
— a pious opinion
3: showing loyal reverence for a person or thing : DUTIFUL
4a: marked by sham or hypocrisy
b: marked by self-conscious virtue : VIRTUOUS
5: deserving commendation : WORTHY
— a pious effort

Both are states of goodness. Innocence does not require action. It simply is. It cannot be taught or learned, though you can recognize it. Piety, on the other hand, is determined on the basis of its righteous actions. It can be taught. It can be learned. Nonetheless, the idea that “we all have a lot to learn from children” was then and is now pervasive in many circles of society. You can see how it might be useful to some less-than-pious adults to let children be the innocent puppet mascots of their beliefs, especially if the public struggles to differentiate the two aforementioned attributes of innocence and piety from each other.

The kid is innocent. -> The kid is good. -> The kid is pious. -> The advice of the pious is worth heeding. -> Arguing with children is improper, as they are innocent and inexperienced.

In short, Mr. Wordsworth, enjoy the rainbow. I enjoyed them as a kid and I continue to take pictures of really good ones today. I think a lifelong love of rainbows is not sufficient justification for the claim that “The Child is father of the Man” or that children experience “natural piety.” I could go with “Rainbows are objectively cool” or “the path I walk determines my eventual location.”

Am I being too hard on the poet? What do you think?