Contagion
Contagion - meaning Summary
Silliness About Contagion
This short poem uses playful absurdity to treat animals as if they transmit or resist disease. Elephants, leopards and a herring are anthropomorphized to make puns about contagion, spots and being "cured" when caught. The tone is light, childlike and humorous, turning medical language into comic imagery while gently satirizing superstition and literal thinking rather than offering serious commentary on illness.
Read Complete AnalysesElephants are contagious! Be careful how you tread. An Elephant that's been trodden on Should be confined to bed! Leopards are contagious too. Be careful tiny tots. They don't give you a temperature But lots and lots - of spots. The Herring is a lucky fish From all disease inured. Should he be ill when caught at sea; Immediately - he's cured!
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