My Heart Leaps Up

“My Heart Leaps Up” is a lyric poem by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. It was written in 1802, during the decade when Wordsworth wrote much of his greatest poetry, and published in Wordsworth’s Poems in Two Volumes in 1807. The poem expresses the poet’s love of nature, a constant theme in his work, and describes the intense joy he felt at the sight of rainbows as a child. Wordsworth used the last three lines of the poem as an epigraph for one of his most famous poems, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” written in 1804 and also published in Poems in Two Volumes.

Poet Biography

William Wordsworth was born into a well-to-do family in the small town of Cockermouth in Cumberland, England, on April 7, 1770. His mother died when he was eight, and his father died when he was 13. Wordsworth was sent to school in the Lake District—an area with which Wordsworth’s poetic career has always been linked. As a boy, he took many long walks exploring the lakes and countryside and feeling a deep connection to nature.

After school, Wordsworth attended St. John’s College at Cambridge University. He did not enjoy his studies or university life generally; after graduating in 1791, he went to France, where he embraced the cause of the French Revolution.

In 1795, Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and they became close friends and collaborators. Together, in 1798, they published the collection Lyrical Ballads, which marked the beginning of the Romantic period in English poetry. A second edition, including Wordsworth’s famous “Preface,” which explains his poetic principles, appeared in 1800. The following decade was a prolific period for Wordsworth, during which he produced much of his best work. In 1804, for example, he completed “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” while in 1805, he composed an early version of The Prelude, a long, autobiographical poem. His Poems in Two Volumes, which included “My Heart Leaps Up,” appeared in 1807. Michael: A Pastoral Poem (1800) and The Ruined Cottage (1799 or 1800, and appearing in an expanded version in The Excursion in 1814) are two other notable works from this period.

In 1802, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, and they had five children. Wordsworth’s brother John drowned in a shipwreck in 1805, a tragedy that profoundly affected Wordsworth and resulted in “Elegiac Stanzas” in 1807. Two of his children died in 1812. Wordsworth also became estranged from his longtime friend Coleridge, although late in life they patched up their quarrel to some extent.

The first collected edition of Wordsworth’s poems appeared in 1815, assuring his reputation as a poet of national stature. In middle and later life, however, the quality of Wordsworth’s poetry declined. He also became a political and religious conservative, rejecting his earlier radicalism. In 1813, he accepted a government position as a Stamp Distributor (a collector of revenues).

Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate in 1843. He died on April 23, 1850, at the age of 80, at Rydal Mount, near Ambleside in the Lake District. The final version of The Prelude, which he spent his career revising, was published posthumously that year. It is considered to be his masterpiece.

Poem Text

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.

Wordsworth, William. “My Heart Leaps Up.” Poets.org, 1807.

Summary

The speaker’s subject is the rainbow and what it means to him. He feels a surge of joy whenever he sees this natural phenomenon—a reaction he has had since he was a very young child and that continues into adulthood. He earnestly hopes that he will still take delight in the rainbow in old age as well—so much so that he hopes he dies if the sight no longer fills him with the same awe. The speaker believes that a man’s childhood shapes the way he experiences life; he wishes that as his life unfolds, with each day chained to the previous, he will continue to revere nature.