{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/my-shadow",
 "title": "My Shadow",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Child's Garden of Verses",
 "book_slug": "childs-garden-of-verses",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 18,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/achildsgardenve04stevgoog"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-louis-stevenson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoemsandvaria00stevuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31291",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30659",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/441",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems,_by_Robert_Louis_Stevenson,_hitherto_unpublished"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 64,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One morning, very early, before the sun was up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}