That Shadow, My Likeness

That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering;
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist, often considered one of the most influential poets in the American canon. His work broke the boundaries of poetic form and is known for its free verse style. Whitman’s most famous collection, 'Leaves of Grass', celebrates democracy, nature, love, and friendship. He had a significant impact on later literary traditions and is often referred to as the father of free verse.

Walt Whitman

The Runner

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

To The Garden The World

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Pensive On Her Dead Gazing, I Heard The Mother Of All

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

To Oratists

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

My Shadow And I.

    A something, not of earth or sky,
        Beside me walks the ways I go,
        And I--I never truly know,
    If I am it or it is I.

    It soothes me with its tender speech,
        It guides me with its gentle hand,
        But I--I can not understand
    The links that bind us each to each.

    I hear the songs of golden days
        Fall softly on the saddened years,
        But know not whose the hungry ears
    First feasted on the roundelays.

    I feel the hopes, the yearnings brave,
        Within my bosom surge and roll,
        But know not whose the Master Soul
    That called their glories from the grave.

    I see the great world's greater curse,
        Dark struggles on through darker days,
        But kn...

Freeman Edwin Miller

Earth! My Likeness!

Earth! my likeness!
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth;
For an athlete is enamour'd of me--and I of him;
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words--not even in these songs.

Walt Whitman

Of The Terrible Doubt Of Apperarances

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all - that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive - the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night - colors, densities, forms - May-be these are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)
May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my present point of view - And might prove, (as of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught any ...

Walt Whitman

As If A Phantom Caress'd Me

As if a phantom caress'd me,
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore--the one I loved, that caress'd me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light--that one has utterly disappear'd,
And those appear that are hateful to me, and mock me.

Walt Whitman

The Shadow Of A Life.

There's a face that beclouds like a shadow my pathway at morn and eve,
There's a form that glides before me which my eyes can never leave,
When I pore above the hearth and heavy thoughts my bosom fill,
I start like a sleeper from dreaming, for it's standing beside me still.

When I stroll in the gloom of the evening is that figure before me cast
With its strange and measured footfall, like the shadow of something past,
All through my summer wandering does it darken the light of the sun,
And it sits like a phantom to mock me when the work of the day is done.

It is ever present with me like an overhanging blight,
Thro' the heaviness of morning and the wakefulness of night,
When I bend within my chamber in the attitude of prayer--
With a look of wrapt devotion is it kneeling--...

Lennox Amott

To You

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabbd nothing but you, I should hav...

Walt Whitman