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I Knew A Man By Sight

by Henry D. Thoreau

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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  • Biography
  • Books:
    • Walden; or, Life in the Woods (172 pages)
    • The Maine Woods (153 pages)
    • Cape Cod (112 pages)
    • A Yankee in Canada (45 pages)
    • A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (197 pages)
  • Major Essays:
    • Civil Disobedience (16 pages)
    • Slavery in Massachusetts (10 pages)
    • Life Without Principle (13 pages)
    • A Walk to Wachusett (10 pages)
    • A Winter Walk (10 pages)
    • Walking (21 pages)
    • Natural History of Massachusetts (14 pages)
    • The Succession of Forest Trees (10 pages)
    • Autumnal Tints (20 pages)
    • Wild Apples (16 pages)
  • Other Essays  »
  • Correspondence  »
  • Poems  »
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