NCERT Solutions Class 10 English (First Flight)
The NCERT Solutions in English Language for Class 10 English (First Flight) Poem – 7 Animals has been provided here to help the students in solving the questions from this exercise.
Poem – 7 (Animals)
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 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?
– WALT WHITMAN [From ‘Song of Myself ’ in Leaves of Grass]
Thinking about the Poem
1. Notice the use of the word ‘turn’ in the first line, “I think I could turn and live with animals…”. What is the poet turning from?
Answer – In this line here, the poet wants to turn from human into an animal. This turning is symbolic of the poet’s detachment from human beings and their nature and his appreciation of the animal kind.
2. Mention three things that humans do and animals don’t.
Answer –
Humans do
- They cry about their condition.
- They lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
- They make the poet sick by discussing their duty to God.
Animals don’t do
- Animals, do not do that.
- Animals do not do so.
- Animals do not do that.
3. Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago? Discuss this in groups.
Answer – Yes, human beings do that. They do so to show respect to the elderly. It is a cultural feature of our country.
4. What are the ‘tokens’ that the poet says he may have dropped long ago, and which the animals have kept for him? Discuss this in class .
(Hint Whitman belongs to the Romantic tradition that includes Rousseau and Wordsworth,which holds that civilisation has made humans false to their own true nature.
What could be the basic aspects of our nature as living beings that humans choose to ignore or deny?)
Answer – The tokens mentioned in the poem mean the symbols of the true nature of human beings. These tokens are actually tokens of virtue such as containment, honesty, innocence and the likes of it.
