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Poetry · Poem
The Rainbow
William WordsworthEnglish RomanticismPoem
诗
SOURCE TEXT · English original
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.
Cultural reading
Reading the poem
The sight of a rainbow makes the speaker's heart leap as it did in childhood and does in manhood, and he asks that it still do so in old age, wishing his days bound each to each by natural piety.
Language notes
Text and edition
The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.