LIVING WITH ANIMALS

 

 

                                                LIVING WITH ANIMALS

This is not the full title of the poem of the American poet Walt Whitman (1819—1892). The title of his poem is I Think I Could Turn And Live With Animals.  This poem occurs in his book “Leaves of Grass”. It is on the basis of this book that he has been called the poet of democracy. Grass being a symbol of minor individuals and leaves of grass of minor poems. Here the readers find ‘celebration of individuality in relation to society and nature’.

            In his poem which is given below Whitman prefers the company of animals to those of human beings. Animals have no artificiality . They live a natural life.  They have no idea of sin and repentance.  They have no artificial manners and false behaviour. They live a simple and uncomplicated life, so they are happy, while human beings lead an unhappy life because of their unrealistic adopted ways and manners. Whitman appreciates the simple natural  life style of animals and says:

            I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self-contained.

I stand and look at them long and long.

           

            They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

            They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

            They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.

            Not one is dissatisfied , not one is demented with mania of owning things,

            Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

            Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

 

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,

They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in

their possession.

 

I wonder where they get those tokens

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

 

                                    *********

G.R.Kanwal

6^th October 2023