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 WhitmanH.B. Binns
Walt WhitmanJohn Burroughs
A Visit to Walt Whitman (Portraits)John Johnston
Walt Whitman the Man (Portraits)Thomas Donaldson
Walt WhitmanG.R. Carpenter
Walt Whitman (Portraits)I.H. Platt
WhitmanBliss Perry
Early May in New England (poem)Percy Mackaye
Knee-deep in JuneJ.W. Riley
SpringHenry Timrod
Spring SongBliss Carman