I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket, And buried him where he fell. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY What is a vigil? Was Whitman ever in battle? Does he mean himself speaking? Was the boy really his son? Is the man's calmness a sign that he does not care? Why does he call the vigil "wondrous" and "sweet"? What does he think about the next life? Read the poem over slowly and thoughtfully to yourself, or aloud to some one: How does it make you feel? Can you see any reason for calling Whitman a great poet? Has he broadened your idea of what poetry may be? Read, if possible, in John Burroughs's book on Whitman, pages 48-53. EXERCISES Re-read the _Warble for Lilac-Time_. Can you write of the signs of fall, in somewhat the same way? Choose the most beautiful and the most important characteristics that you can think of. Try to use color-words and sound-words so that they make your composition vivid and musical. Compare the _Warble for Lilac-Time_ with the first lines of Chaucer's _Prologue_ to the _Canterbury Tales_. With Lowell's _How Spring Came in New England_. THEME SUBJECTS A Walk in the Woods A Spring Day Sugar-Making My Flower Garden The Garden in Lilac Time The Orchard in Spring On a Farm in Early Summer A Walk on a Summer Night Waiting for Morning The Stars Walt Whitman and his Poetry COLLATERAL READINGS Poems by Whitman suitable for class reading:-- On the Beach at Night Bivouac on a Mountain Side To a Locomotive in Winter A Farm Picture The Runner I Hear It was Charged against Me A Sight in Camp By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame Song of the Broad-Axe A Child said _What is the grass?_ (from _A Song of Myself_) The Rolling Earth (Selections from Whitman) W.R. Browne (Ed.) The Life of Walt Whitman H.B. Binns Walt Whitman John Burroughs A Visit to Walt Whitman (Portraits) John Johnston Walt Whitman the Man (Portraits) Thomas Donaldson Walt Whitman G.R. Carpenter Walt Whitman (Portraits) I.H. Platt Whitman Bliss Perry Early May in New England (poem) Percy Mackaye Knee-deep in June J.W. Riley Spring Henry Timrod Spring Song Bliss Carman ODYSSEUS IN PHAEACIA TRANSLATED BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER