The Rainbow

God’s covenant of love is a fresh joy every time it appears.

1802

King George III 1760-1820

A rainbow caresses the waters of the North Sea just beyond the pier and lighthouse at Tynemouth, in north east England.

Introduction

William Wordsworth never lost his childhood delight in a rainbow: it was a kind of legacy from his youth to his maturity, from the time when (in his belief) the soul remembers the God who made it more clearly.

by William Wordsworth 1770-1850

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 the father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

by William Wordsworth 1770-1850

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Précis

Wordsworth reflects that the sight of a rainbow gives him a joy as fresh as the first time he ever saw one, as a child; he adds that the sense of religious awe before Nature which he felt as a child has been handed down to his older self, and is something he would wish to feel unceasingly.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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