2. For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking;
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
—J. R. Lowell: The Vision of Sir Launfal.
3. Oh, for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy.
—J. G. Whittier: The Barefoot Boy.
32. Paraphrase of Complete Compositions.—It is also sometimes a helpful exercise to paraphrase, not an extract, but a complete poem or short piece of prose, in order to make sure that you understand it thoroughly. This often requires a good deal of study, for details, which you had not at first noticed, but which are essential to the meaning, need to be carefully thought out.
Read, for example, Longfellow's delightful poem, Walter Von der Vogelweid and then the paraphrase that follows.
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Würtzburg's minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with his behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long."
Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.