My Shadow
Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)
From Child's Garden of Verses
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 297 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X AABB CCDD EEAA FFBB |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 925 |
Words | 194 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"My Shadow" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/31645/my-shadow>.
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