I Knew A Man By Sight
Henry David Thoreau 1817 (Concord) – 1862 (Concord)
I knew a man by sight,
A blameless wight,
Who, for a year or more,
Had daily passed my door,
Yet converse none had had with him.
I met him in a lane,
Him and his cane,
About three miles from home,
Where I had chanced to roam,
And volumes stared at him, and he at me.
In a more distant place
I glimpsed his face,
And bowed instinctively;
Starting he bowed to me,
Bowed simultaneously, and passed along.
Next, in a foreign land
I grasped his hand,
And had a social chat,
About this thing and that,
As I had known him well a thousand years.
Late in a wilderness
I shared his mess,
For he had hardships seen,
And I a wanderer been;
He was my bosom friend, and I was his.
And as, methinks, shall all,
Both great and small,
That ever lived on earth,
Early or late their birth,
Stranger and foe, one day each other know.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 313 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBX CCDDE FFEEX GGHHX XXXXX IIJJX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 821 |
Words | 163 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
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"I Knew A Man By Sight" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/17328/i-knew-a-man-by-sight>.
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