When I Read The Book

A poem by Walt Whitman

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;
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real life;
Only a few hints, a few diffused, faint clues and indirections,
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)