My heart leaps up when I beholdA 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 beBound each to each by natural piety.
William Wordsworth · My Heart Leaps Up
Joy & wonder
“My heart leaps up when I behold”
- Author
- William Wordsworth
- Work
- My Heart Leaps Up
- Found in
- The Oxford Book of English Verse
- Year
- 1807
- Length
- 61 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #66619
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. William Wordsworth died in 1850, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1807. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
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Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we comeFrom God, who is our home:
The world is so full of a number of things,I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
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Passage page · Read the full text
Passage page · Read the full text
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,Whether the summer clothe the general earthWith greenness, or the redbreast sit and singBetwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branchOf mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatchSmokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fallHeard only in the trances of the blast,Or if the secret ministry of frostShall hang them up in silent icicles,Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,Wind of the western sea,Low, low, breathe and blow,Wind of the western sea!Over the rolling waters go,Come from the dying moon, and blow,Blow him again to me;While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,Father will come to thee soon;Rest, rest, on mother's breast,Father will come to thee soon;Father will come to his babe in the nest,Silver sails all out of the westUnder the silver moon:Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.
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