| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | My Shadow’s Stature | | By John James Piatt (1835–1917) |
| | | WHENE’ER, in morning airs, I walk abroad, | |
| Breasting upon the hills the buoyant wind, | |
| Up from the vale my shadow climbs behind, | |
| An earth-born giant climbing towards his god; | |
| Against the sun, on heights before untrod, | 5 |
| I stand: faint glorified, but undefined, | |
| Far down the slope in misty meadows blind, | |
| I see my ghostly follower slowly plod. | |
| “O stature of my shade,” I muse and sigh, | |
| “How great art thou, how small am I the while!” | 10 |
| Then the vague giant blandly answers, “True, | |
| But though thou art small thy head is in the sky, | |
| Crown’d with the sun and all the Heaven’s smile— | |
| My head is in the shade and valley too.” | | | | |
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