Question

What does the boy do while swimming?

Answer 1

The poem Swimming is a well-known poem written by Adam Lindsay Gordon.

• Adam Lindsay Gordon is an American poet, author, and artist. He was born in New Britain, Connecticut and raised in Woodbridge, Connecticut.
• After graduating from Woodbridge High School, Lindsay Gordon attended Stanford University and then Yale University, receiving a BA in English in 1943.

In the poem, the boy is swimming in a pond when he is attacked by a walrus.

• The boy barely manages to avoid being taken by the walrus.
• He struggles for a while, but manages to escape being eaten by the walrus and swam safely away.
• The boy’s exciting and tense experience in the pond leads him to describe the water as “frothing”, which means that it is agitated and angry.
• The boy feels that the water is frothing because the walrus is attacking him.
• The frothing water causes the boy to feel that he is in danger, which causes him to be afraid.
• The boy struggles to escape the danger, but fails.
• The boy watched the walrus’s great bulk glide and surge in the moonlight.
• He had been swimming in the pond for nearly an hour, and his muscles were beginning to ache.

• But the cool air felt good on his hot skin, and he didn’t want to get out of the water.
• He floated on his back, watching the stars.