Journal #38 As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing

As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing

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.)

"As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing" is about people going about their every day lives. This shows the "everyman" that Walt Whitman usually writes about. The ploughman in the field, the sowers in the field, and harvesters are all going about their every day lives in this poem. They are performing their every day tasks, and they are doing it well.

All of these men could be made into one man who could be thought of as God. They could be thought of as God because God created the earth and made everything how it is. This farmer is acting like a god to his farm.

The seperate farmers could be seen as the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. The ploughman could be the Father because God created the earth (he plowed the fields for everything to be made or in the ploughman's view, planted). The sower is the Son because he told everyone to follow God and do holy things. The harvester could be the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit takes you up to heaven when you die.

These poem could also be taken another way. The farmers could be seen as actual farmers. They all have very simple jobs and everything. This poem portrays the time period because most people had very simple jobs, and they led a very simple life. This poem could be said that the men lead their simple and happy lives, and if they do well and plant things and help them to grow, they will die a nice and happy death, and they will go up to heaven and be happy.

This portrays the everyman because the everyman lives a very simple life, and he hopes to go up to heaven and be happy.

Life and death is like a harvest. Each life is a season and the death is the end of the season. Every new harvest is a new life and every end of the harvest is a death.