The death of Wordsworth's Boy of Winander reflects his fascination with the eternal and the ephemeral. But there is an contradictory dimension to his thought; on the one hand, death stops the Boy's potential; on the other, death keeps the Boy of Winander from all of those corrupting factors and influences of adulthood. The Boy of Winander is cut off before he can fulfill his potential and preserved in his purity, his closest relationship to the immortal, against the inevitable corruption of adulthood. According to Wordsworth, in our youth, we are closer to our natural immortality, man's true state of being. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy" but as the Boy becomes a man "shades of the prison-house begin to close" (65-67). Nevertheless, there is clearly a sense in which slumber seals the Boy of Winander's spirit. This paradox between temporality and immortality represents Wordsworth's fascination with death.
             With the image of the Boy, "fingers interwoven, both hands pressed closely palm to palm" Wordsworth creates a link to the eternal nature of man (7-8). Nature becomes a place of communion with the immortal, a place where a child, closely linked with immortality, can experience transcendence. It is this commingling of youth, nature and the sublime that reveals the eternal nature of man.
             The uncertainty of heaven and life after death is reflected by the metaphorical "uncertain heaven, received into the bosom of the steady lake" (24-25). The uncertainty of heaven and the steadiness of the lake create an interesting paradox. If heaven is uncertain then neither is life for the Boy after death. Wordsworth therefore is questioning the meaningfulness of the Boy's life, a life that would have left little trace of immortality on earth. Nature is however steady and certain. It is a dependable construction reflecting immortality from God.
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