My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold a Rainbow

 Brunswick, Georgia, October 25, 2007

           My Heart Leaps Up


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 wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.


     --William Wordsworth




Besides the rainbow in the Noah's Ark story, the only other rainbow in literature I can remember from my childhood is one I read about in a book of poetry.


William Wordsworth's poem captured my imagination when I was in second or third grade. Although I was too young to understand the meaning of the poem, I had a sense of its importance. I never forgot it,  and it lived in my heart until, as a young adult, I revisited it and tried to understood his ideas. 


I recently discovered several comments online that interpreted his poem in ways I hadn't considered before. Clearly people can read what they want into these lines.


I prefer to think that there is a "child" inside my adult soul who still whispers wisdom to me that she learned growing up. If I ever lose touch with my "inner child" then I shudder to think how I will be able to live my life, laugh at its absurdities, cry at its joys, weep for my friends and family in times of hardship, and pray with a faith only a child can possess because the adult is too cynical or blind to see what is before her.


I don't know if this is "the right answer" for the test on the meaning of the poem, but it is an answer I like for me. I think it is the reason this poem has spoken to me for forty years of my life.
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Dear Lord, thank you for the wisdom of children who see your world so clearly. Let us adults remember to embrace them and listen to them, even the ones speaking from within our hearts.