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 among my lovers and caroling these songs,O I never doubt whether that is really me.
Words in this poem
- chattering n.
- The act or habit of talking idly or rapidly, or of making inarticulate sounds; the sounds so made; noise made by the collision of the teeth; chatter.
- caroling n.
- A song of joy or devotion; a singing, as of carols. Coleridge.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
That Shadow My Likeness is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, That Shadow My Likeness, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/that-shadow-my-likeness.html, id L03893.
Form and metre
That Shadow My Likeness is 6 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 13.2 syllables.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ---A-A livelihood · chaffering · flits · meA · songs · meA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood, | 17 | ·/··/˘·····/˘·/˘· |
| chattering, chaffering, | 6 | /˘˘··· |
| How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits, | 17 | ·/˘···//˘·/˘····· |
| How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; | 15 | ·/˘·/˘······/˘· |
| But among my lovers and caroling these songs, | 12 | ····/˘·/˘˘·· |
| O I never doubt whether that is really me. | 12 | ··/˘·····/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.