SOURCE: “Thoreau's Poem ‘Sympathy': His ‘Gentle Boy' Identified,” in The Concord Saunterer, Vol. 18, No. 2, December 1985, pp. 20-7.

In the following essay, Pitts argues that the “gentle boy” of the poem “Sympathy” is Thoreau himself.

On June 24, 1839, when Henry David Thoreau was almost twenty-two years old, he wrote this now famous poem in his Journal:¹

“Sympathy”

Lately alas I knew a gentle boy, Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould, As one she had designed for Beauty's toy, But after manned him for her own stronghold. 

On every side he open was as day, That you might see no lack of strength within, For walls and ports do only serva alway For a pretence to feebleness and sin. 

Say not that Caesar was victorious, With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame In other sense this youth was glorious, Himself a kingdom whereso'eer he came. 

No...