Weeds may be poisonous for animals and humans.
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?
Statement 1: We never see cattle or goats grazing on the weed Calotropis.
Statement 2: Calotropis produces highly poisonous cardiacglycosides