"AS I watch’d the ploughman ploughing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields—or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)" (Whitman)
This is Walt Whitman's poem, "As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing." This is one of Whitman's poems that discusses Self, which is the true self of a person. It includes the spiritual self, the personal identifying self, and how others see oneself. This poem specifically deals with the spiritual self, and in particular Christianity.
Christianity believes that Jesus Christ came and died for everyone's sins, and three days after he died from crucifixion, he was resurrected and returned to heaven. By His life, everyone in the world is saved and can go to heaven if they truly believe in Him. Walt Whitman's poem, "As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing," shows this belief in Christianity.
The life, is the life of every person. When you plant seeds, they need to be planted under the soil at the appropriate depth, with the right amount of water, and sunlight. How people lives their lives is how they plant their seeds. Their life is the growing of the plants. If they live their life according to how God wants us to live, the plants will grow big and tall and healthily. But if they do not live accordingly, their plants will not grow healthily. The harvest is death and the afterlife. A promising harvest means heaven and a wonderful afterlife. I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)" (Whitman)
Walt Whitman was a very prominent and popular poet in America, and he was very into the idea of Christianity. Because of this, Christianity played a major part in his definition of Self and in his poems. "As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing," one of Walt Whitman's poems, displays this definition of Self and the idea of Christianity very well in its analogies of life, death, and farming.
Works Cited
Whitman, Walt. As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing (1900). Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
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