Every noon, as Walter had desired, the children of the choir fed the birds about his tomb. Day after day, in larger and larger numbers, these small wandering minstrels flocked to be fed, in fair or stormy weather. On the tree that overshadowed his grave, on the pavement, on the tombstone, even on the face of the marble statue of the poet, they would cluster, singing in rivalry as he had once sung in competition with other poets at the castle of Wartburg. And in their carols was always the name of Vogelweid.
At last the abbot determined that this waste of food should not continue, but that loaves of bread should be bought instead for the fasting priests. After this the birds clamored in vain for the children who had fed them.
Time has long since worn away the inscription on the tombstone of the cloister, and now there is nothing to tell us where the poet's bones rest; but around the cathedral the sweet voices of the birds still repeat the story and the name of Walter Von der Vogelweid.
Exercise 74. Paraphrase such complete poems or prose passages as your teacher may indicate.
Suggested poems:—1. Longfellow's The Legend of the Crossbill, or The Wreck of the Hesperus. 2. Tennyson's Lady Clare. 3. Browning's An Incident of the French Camp. 4. Scott's Lochinvar. 5. Campbell's Lord Ullin's Daughter. 6. Bayard Taylor's A Song of the Camp. 7. Whittier's Telling the Bees. 8. Kingsley's The Sands o' Dee. 9. Leigh Hunt's Abou Ben Adhem. 10. Lowell's The Courtin'.
CHAPTER VI
WHOLE COMPOSITIONS; OUTLINES
33. Whole Compositions.—You have now studied the combination of words into sentences and the combination of sentences into paragraphs. You must meanwhile have guessed that there is a still larger process of composition,—the combining of paragraphs into the essay or chapter or book. This process we must now examine briefly.