I Think I Could Turn and LIve with the Animals

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are

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 the

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.

: Walt Whitman