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Helen Darbishire and Ernest De Selincourt (eds), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. 1: Poems Written in Youth; Poems Referring to the Period of Childhood (Second Edition)
Main Text
Editor’s NoteEditor’s NoteI
[Composed March 26, 1802.—Published 1807.]
- 1My heart leaps up when I behold
- 2 A rainbow in the sky:
- 3So was it when my life began;
- 4So is it now I am a man;
- 5So be it when I shall grow old,
- 6 Or let me die!
- 7The Child is father of the Man;
- 8And I could wish my days to be
- 9Bound each to each by natural piety.
Editor’s Note
p. 226. I. My heart leaps up: "This was written at Grasmere Town-End 1804."—I. F. But the correct date is March 26, 1802; v. D. W.'s Journal of that day: "When I was getting into bed he wrote The Rainbow." But, as she notes on May 14, "W. very nervous. After he was in bed, haunted with altering The Rainbow", we may conjecture that the poem did not reach its published form on March 26.
In 1807 it was included among "Moods of my own Mind".
