Emotional Geography
Notice the verb 'leaps' — this is not just seeing, but a visceral, physical response to natural beauty.
Existential Choice
Dramatic ultimatum: experiencing natural beauty is so essential that without it, life loses meaning. Wordsworth would rather die than lose his sense of wonder.
Childhood Memory
The line suggests childhood perception is not lost but preserved. Wordsworth believes early wonder is a permanent state, not something outgrown.
Reading Notes
Romantic Vision of Perception
Romantic poets like Wordsworth believed childhood perception was a pure, unmediated way of experiencing the world. This poem argues that our capacity for wonder is not something we lose, but a fundamental human capacity.
The rainbow becomes a metaphor for transformative perception — a moment of pure aesthetic experience that connects past, present, and future. By repeating 'So was it... So is it... So be it', Wordsworth creates a sense of continuous emotional experience.
Natural Piety and Emotional Continuity
[CONTEXT: Written in 1802, during Romantic movement's peak] The phrase 'natural piety' is crucial — it suggests a spiritual connection to nature that is not religious in a traditional sense, but deeply reverential.
Wordsworth is proposing an emotional and spiritual continuity: our childhood capacity for wonder is not lost, but can be maintained throughout life if we remain open to natural beauty.