The Beasts
Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so
placid and self-contain’d;
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 industrious over the whole earth.