When I Read the Book

by Walt Whitman · 1867
Published 01/07/1867

WHEN I read the book, the biography famous;

And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man's life?

And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?

(As if any man really knew aught of my life;

As if you, O cunning Soul, did not keep your secret well!)

#existentialism #mortality #self knowledge #walt whitman

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