| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | The Shadow | | By Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) |
| | Translated by Arthur O’Shaughnessy
WE walk: our shadow follows in the rear, | |
| Mimics our motions, treads where’er we tread, | |
| Looks without seeing, listens without an ear, | |
| Crawls while we walk with proud uplifted head. | |
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| Like to his shadow, man himself down here, | 5 |
| A little living darkness, a frail shred | |
| Of form, sees, speaks, but with no knowledge clear, | |
| Saying to Fate, “By thee my feet are led.” | |
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| Man shadows but a lower angel who, | |
| Fallen from high, is but a shadow too; | 10 |
| So man himself an image is of God. | |
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| And, maybe, in some place by us untrod, | |
| Near deepest depths of nothingness or ill, | |
| Some wraith of human wraiths grows darker still. | | | | |
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