Six Blind Men in the Orient

Six blind men in the Orient,

    Confronted by an elephant,

(Not one of them had ever seen,

    As blind is all they’d ever been).

So, as all six of them were blind

    They felt the beast so as to find

Out what this animal might be—

    Albeit’s not what they could see.

The first one, touching on its tail,

    Decided, “It must be a flail!”

The second, handled its hind leg,

    Suspecting that it be a keg;

The third man felt the animal

    And said, “It has to be a wall!”

The fourth, feeling its ear had said,

    “This has to be a fan instead.”

Fifth touched its tusk of ivory,

    Considering what it might be,

And said, “An implement of war—

    A battering ram it must be for!”

The sixth said of the elephant

    In handling its trunk, “It can’t 

Be anything except some hose!”—

    So, none of them was even close.

“Perhaps,” they wondered, “It is all:

    A flail, a barrel and a wall,

A fan, a battering ram and hose?”

    For being blind one never knows

Exactly what somebody sees,

    Who only sees it piece by piece—

It’s piecemeal partially he feels

    By touching on what it reveals.