As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing
As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing - context Summary
Published in Drum-taps
Published in Drum-Taps (1865), Whitman’s brief lyric turns a simple rural scene into a meditation on life and death. Watching a ploughman, sower, and harvester, the speaker equates everyday agricultural labor with human existence: life as tillage, death as harvest. The poem reflects Whitman’s attention to common work and his recurring interest in mortality, drawing a clear, accessible analogy between farming cycles and human fate.
Read Complete AnalysesAS 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.)
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