"My Heart Leaps Up", by William Wordsworth, is a poem that was written simply to express the poet's awe and reverence for the beauty of the world surrounding him. The tone of the poem is passionate; Wordsworth talks about how his heart "leaps" at the sight of a rainbow and exclaims how he would prefer death to losing his appreciation for the beauty of nature. Wordsworth uses various rhythmic and stylistic techniques and figurative images in this poem to convey his exuberant love of nature.
             The rhythm, language and imagery of the poem help the reader to understand its message. The poem begins with a pleasant flowing rhythm in the first five lines. The poet uses certain words and phrases in the first two lines to uplift the reader's thoughts and emotions. Phrases such a "My heart leaps up" and "Rainbow in the sky" are meant to cause the reader's emotions to soar upward with the poet's as he describes his exuberant appreciation for nature. In the third, fourth and fifth lines, the poet uses the technique of repetition, changing only the tense of each line. Each of the three lines starts with the word "So" and then uses the past, present, and future tense, respectively, to continue the thought- "So was it", "So is it", and "So be it". The use of similar language in each line gives the sense of continuity and sameness which the poet desires to have throughout his life in terms of his own appreciation of nature.
             In the fifth and sixth lines, the gentle and uplifting flow of the poem changes abruptly when the poet vows to retain his love of nature even in his old age. He says, "So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!" The abrupt language, the use of the exclamation point, and the indentation of this line give the reader a vivid picture of how meaningless his life would be if the poet were to lose his appreciation for the beauty around him. The abruptness and finality of this line mirr
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