I was meditating today and a couple of old lines from William Wordsworth (1770-1850) came to my mind. I thought I'd explore them a bit and see what this old poet laureate of England had to say about the relationship between our younger and older selves:
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;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
1802.
Source: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww194.html
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;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
1802.
Source: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww194.html
The first couple of lines seem clear enough, though they express an interesting relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. When you see something beautiful, it is as if your senses leave your body to mingle with the object. It's a projection beyond yourself. It also reminds me just a little of the Matrix, where the internal perception becomes indistinguishable from the external world. He's suggesting that we're creating our reality in an almost unconscious way.
In the next two lines, starting with "So it was...", he again suggests a kind of projection, this one through time rather than space, and he goes on to extend it through the present into the future. The repetition of "So was it", "So is it", and "So be it" at the beginning of each line with subtle differences suggests that we stay the same and we change: But do we grow? Wither? Both? The rhyme between "began" and "man" seems to anticipate that life will go on forever in a beautiful pattern, but the end of the next line -- "old" -- suggests things must come to an end. When he says "Or let me die!" it seems to me he's looking at death not as an inevitability but as the point at which life ceases to be worth living. If enjoying a good rainbow is what really does it for him, then when he can't enjoy them anymore, he feels like he might as well be dead already.
It's kind of a brutal line: "Or let me die!" At the same time, it's the set up for the big quote that I remembered, really the central message of the whole poem:
In the next two lines, starting with "So it was...", he again suggests a kind of projection, this one through time rather than space, and he goes on to extend it through the present into the future. The repetition of "So was it", "So is it", and "So be it" at the beginning of each line with subtle differences suggests that we stay the same and we change: But do we grow? Wither? Both? The rhyme between "began" and "man" seems to anticipate that life will go on forever in a beautiful pattern, but the end of the next line -- "old" -- suggests things must come to an end. When he says "Or let me die!" it seems to me he's looking at death not as an inevitability but as the point at which life ceases to be worth living. If enjoying a good rainbow is what really does it for him, then when he can't enjoy them anymore, he feels like he might as well be dead already.
It's kind of a brutal line: "Or let me die!" At the same time, it's the set up for the big quote that I remembered, really the central message of the whole poem:
The child is the father of the Man
You hear so much about man children these days, but I somehow doubt that's what old Bill was getting at. It isn't like one of those movies about a guy who refuses to grow up until he meets some manic dream girl who turns his world upside down. Or is it? I guess it depends on what childhood means to you. For the sake of argument, what if projection is projection, whether you're projecting your desires onto a rainbow to regain your youthful spark, or projecting them on a magical girl?
If that was the case, then maybe Wordsworth can teach us something about the present, even if only by accident. Basically, it's crucial to recognize the source of the projection. In truth, the child, the man, the rainbow, and the manic pixie girl don't actually exist except in the consciousness of the speaker. The speaker exists in a timeless place, casting his thoughts out into the past, present and future. The only place he can't imagine is what comes after life, which is why he's noticeably short on words after he hits "old." Ironically, I think he's already speaking from a position outside of life.
It's interesting to me that at the end he wishes "natural piety" could hold each of his days together. The fact that it's a wish suggests to me that he's not quite convinced about this picture of the world he's painted. In actuality, I see it more as the speaker's consciousness that holds it all together. Really, the world can be anything, and I think if you go searching for all your answers "out there", you'll run the risk of mistaking what you find for the truth. It's the classic man-child problem. Ouch. I really do think this is a beautiful poem. Maybe just a tad unfinished? It seems blasphemous to suggest it, but maybe that's just my projection onto the situation. To quote Keaanu Reeves as he finally realizes his mind's powers, "Whoa."
Anyway, do you realize that if you got this far, you just read a literary essay? How freakin' weird is that? If it makes you feel any better, I used to be a professor. It must be Friday. I hope you have a magical rainbow-filled weekend, or whatever else you wish could be.
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