WHENE'RE, in morning airs, I walk abroad, <br />Breasting upon the hills the buoyant wind, <br />Up from the vale my shadow climbs behind, <br />An earth-born giant climbing toward his god; <br />Against the sun, on heights before untrod, <br />I stand: faint glorified, but undefined, <br />Far down the slope in misty meadows blind, <br />I see my ghostly follower slowly plod. <br />'O stature of my shade,' I muse and sigh, <br />'How great art thou, how small am I the while!' <br />Then the vague giant blandly answers, 'True, <br />But though thou art small thy head is in the sky, <br />Crown'd with the sun and all the Heaven's smile-- <br />My head is in the shade and valley too.'<br /><br />John James Piatt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-shadow-s-stature/
