Predrag Kovačević 1

Predrag Kovačević

Professor Nataša Karanfilović Phd

XIX Century American Literature

18 April 2011

“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”: Themes

A great philosopher and a very influential figure in nineteenth century America, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, stated in his essay “The Poet” that every great nation has to have its leading
poet, a visionary and a seer who will help in creating the national identity and set foundation for
the equally great culture (Emerson 189-211). Walt Whitman read this essay which was published
in 1845 and was profoundly influenced by it, he was even remembered to have said: “I was
simmering, simmering, simmering and Emerson brought me to a boil.” (Reynolds, 92). It can be
true that this idea of Emerson’s provided the impetus for Whitman’s very prolific literary career.

In 1855 Whitman published his collection of 12 poems called “Leaves of Grass” which
was to see 9 editions1 and grow from 93 pages to 456 pages and 389 poems which the final,
“deathbed” edition, in 1892 contained. It was very different form conventional American poetry
of the time and even though it might be wrong to judge a book by the cover, the covers of this
book, ornamented with natural motifs on the green background, suggested one very important
aspect of the collection, which is the theme of nature . One of the main themes of the book is
nature but there are many others as well which are perhaps even more important. This book was
to become Walt Whitman’s magnum opus and to grow together with the poet, to change the
mood and attitude as the poet’s mood and attitude changed, to be, what S.T. Coleridge referred to
as organic form, a work of art which matures with the artist, just like his Biographia Literaria.
This collection of poems dealt with the importance of the poet as a visionary, as someone who
unites the present and the future and helps in awakening people’s consciousness but he does not
say he is worthier that any other individual, because he adhered firmly to the belief of democracy
that every individual is equally important, the belief which would become so deeply rooted in the
1
The number of editions varies from 6 to 9, according to what different scholars regard as a different edition.
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American culture and consciousness. For Whitman, the poet is more like a channel through
which natural imagination and beauty, inherent to humans, springs out.

The title of the collection was a sort of pun in which “grass” referred to the way
publishers at that time called literary works of minor value and “leaves” were the pages on which
they were printed (Loving, 179) but “grass” has many different interpretations and it can be said
that it unifies almost all the themes in the collection. It can stand for individuality in the mass
since every blade of grass is unique in some way even though there is a large number of them, it
can also represent the cycle of life and rebirth since every spring the grass starts to grow before
all the other vegetation and as Whitman, himself, stated grass is a symbol of equality among the
races since it grows among the black men same as among the white (Matthiessen, 548).

Marc van Doren, in his work “Happy Critic”, stated that the poems “When Lilacs Last in
the Dooryard Bloom’d” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” are the summit of
Whitman’s poetry in the way that they are most effective and mature (Van Doren, 43). This
paper will deal in much greater detail with “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”

“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” was first published individually in New York
Saturday Press under the title “A Child’s Reminiscence” in 1859, however, Whitman was not
completely satisfied with the poem so he altered it several times and also changed the title. In
1860 it became a part of Leaves of Grass under the title “A Word out of Sea”. The poem went
through considerable changes in 1867 edition and got its final form in 1881, in so-called
“deathbed edition” when it was placed as the first poem of the Sea-drift section. The present title
was first used in 1871 edition.

The poem represents, as the first title suggested, a reminiscence of the poet about the
crucial event in his childhood which awakened the artistic side of his being and determined his
future as a poet. The storyline is quite simple: the poet remembers himself as a young boy who
on the beaches of Long Island observes two mocking-birds whom he refers to as “feather’d
guests from Alabama” (Whitman 26). Not only does he observe them but he is also able to
understand their song and translate it. One day the she-bird does not return to the nest so the he-
bird suffers and calls to her the entire summer. When he finally loses hope the boy experiences a
kind of epiphany about life’s sorrows and loss and the sea utters the word “death” as the final
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word which is superior to all. The realization of death as an overwhelming power is what
provides the source for his art.

There are several important themes which are dealt with in this poem and they will be
elaborated on separately. These themes are: the birth of a poet, the sources of poetic imagination
and the theme of nature, the theme of love and happiness, the theme of loss, the theme of death
and finally the cycle of life.

The first and the most important theme, which underlies all the others is the theme of
birth and, more specifically, the birth of a poet. This theme is evident even in the structure and
rhythm of the first sentence, which is one of the sentences typical of Whitman but also one of his
best such sentences. Subject in this sentence does not appear until the line 20 and is preceded by
abundance of prepositions and movement adverbs suggesting struggle and tension, struggle and
tension of birth. The rhythm of the sentence resembles the sound of the sea and the waves
crashing against the seashore. The sea which is compared to cradle in the first line and the title
symbolizes birth among several other things. Scholars have coined the term “oceanic sentences”
to refer to this element of Whitman’s style (Allen, Davis 232). “Out of the Ninth-month
midnight” (Whitman, 3) is one of the prepositional phrases in the first, oceanic, sentence which
particularly suggests the culmination of pregnancy and that something, in this case the poet, is
about to come to existence. The boy spends the entire summer watching the birds careful not to
disturb them. When the he-bird stays alone and suffers the boy identifies with him, feels his loss
and sorrow as something universal and at that moment he experiences epiphany, the line
“Thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me never to die” (Whitman, 149) means
that the realization awakened the artistic impulse within him.

However, it is not at this moment when the boy turns into a poet, its rather that he
becomes aware of his poetic abilities and aptitudes but he is still lost and surprised and he almost
desperately cries for meaning, the meaning of all the suffering in life. The poet is finally born
when the sea utters the word “death” as the answer to his pleas, at this moment the boy realizes
that the fact that everything has to come to an end and die makes life what it is and gives the
immense value to it. This realization gives the basic idea to his later poetry and provides the
impetus for his poetic endeavors.
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Whitman’s view of the poet and sources of poetic imagination can be regarded as a
separate theme in the poem. This view has its roots in Emerson’s essay “The Poet” where the
author points out to the necessity of the society to have its representative bard, a spiritual leader,
a visionary, an inspired seer, who helps people form their national consciousness. He has to
possess an inner illumination which he then projects on the world through his art. But where
does his inspiration come from? Answer to this can be found in both Transcendentalism and
Romanticism, which had great influence on Whitman. Both of these movements held that nature
is the supreme source of the poetic inspiration, but Whitman even goes one step further, since his
inspiration does not come from mere admiration of natural beauties but he seems to able to
communicate with nature and get answers from it. This particular poem presents these ideas in
many ways. Firstly, the boy is able to understand what the birds sing about, unlike any other
human, therefore, he is a connection between ordinary people and nature and natural truths. This
can easily be only his imagination or the projection of his own psychological state but then it
shows how fruitful and truly poetic his imagination is. Secondly, the poet is here to represent a
universal man, different form the ordinary people only in his exceptional gift of imagination.
This idea is obvious in the line: “From your memories sad brother, form the fitful risings and
fallings I heard” (Whitman 9). Thirdly, the poet is “uniter of here and hereafter” (Whitman 20),
therefore, a seer who is able to foresee the future of his nation and a collector of different
experiences- “Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them” (Whitman 21) but
not only does he collect individual experiences but he generalizes about them and finds universal
truths as well. As we can see the first sentence serves as a sort of “catalogue” (Van Doren, 48)
where the sources of poetic inspiration are numbered. In addition to these, nature is also a great
source of inspiration as obvious in “Over the sterile sands and fields beyond” (Whitman 4) or
“Out form the patches of briers and blackberries” (Whitman 7).

Great natural forces - the sea, the land, the sun, the moon, the stars are presented as
similar to gods, because living beings, in this case the poet and the he-bird turn to them for
answers. This can be viewed as a reflection of Whitman’s pantheism. The he-bird addresses each
of these elements asking for his mate and the poet gets the final answer from the sea. Also the
natural atmosphere corresponds to the events and emotions in the poem – love is accompanied to
sun, loss to the moon and night and the hope of the he-bird fades gradually with the moon. The
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moon also foreshadows the sorrowful events when it is described in the beginning as “that
yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears” (Whitman 10).

Love and happiness are two very important themes in “Out of the Cradle Endlessly
Rocking” and they are mirrored in two mockingbirds which come from Alabama and make their
nest near the boy’s house. The two birds live in perfect happiness “singing all time, minding no
time” (39), they are complete as one whole while they are together. However, their happiness is
presented in very short part of the poem, some nine lines, in order to show how happiness lasts
shortly. It can be seen merely as a literary device providing a transition, a step, towards more
important theme of loss. It is very important to note that love does not die with loss, on the
contrary, it gets stronger, it seems like it finally and fully realizes itself only when it gets
disturbed. This could, very well, fit in with, perhaps, the general idea about life that Whitman
wanted to portray in this poem and that is that the full appreciation of something comes only
after the loss or the realization of changefulness of that particular thing.

As we come to the theme of loss in “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” we can see
that loss here is a general concept which encompasses losses of several individual things,
namely, the loss of the loved one and happiness and hope on the part of the bird which
correspond with the loss of childhood illusions and innocence in the boy. In the line 41 “Till of a
sudden” (Whitman 41) an abrupt twist takes place and the picture of loss and loneliness replaces
the idyllic picture of happiness. Now there is “The solitary guest from Alabama” (Whitman 51)
who sings to his mate, who did not appear one afternoon in the nest, wanting her to come back.
He addresses the wind, the moon, the land asking them to bring his love back to him and his
hope gradually fades, this loss of hope is represented by the moon which is first “lagging…heavy
with love” (Whitman 76), after that there is a “dusky spot” (Whitman 97) of hope on the “Low-
hanging” (Whitman 96) moon until the hope finally dies and the moon almost disappears leaving
only “brown halo” (Whitman 121)(Karanfilović, practice classes). The past love and loss are
contrasted from the line 125 to 130:

O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!

In the air—in the woods—over fields;

Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!

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But my love no more, no more with me!

We two together no more. (Whitman 125-129)

The insistence on the words “no more” is to illustrate the sorrow of the one who was once
happy but has now lost that happiness. Edgar Allan Poe used this device as a refrain in his poem
“The Raven” with the same purpose.

The boy was able to understand the birds when they were happy but they did not
influence him so much until the he-bird’s dirge corresponded with the same emotion of loss
within him. The young poet identifies with the bird and feels his loss trough his own loss of
childhood illusions and ignorance.

He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know.

Yes my brother I know,

The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note (Whitman 60-62)
undoubtedly, suggests his ability to understand the sufferings of others because he has suffered
himself. However, this ability of identification of pain is still not complete, he is still not able to
feel the sorrow of life completely because he still has that shell of childhood around him. After
witnessing the bird’s loss of hope he feels the shell of his childhood cracking in the ecstasy of
awakening of a poet, he is now an “outsetting bard” (Whitman 143). Becoming conscious of his
nature as a human being prone to suffering and also a poet who is to feel that suffering, perhaps,
even more intensely is painful and causes tears. There is even doubt in the boy whether the bird
is a demon since it provoke so much pain within him, it becomes an embodiment of sorrow: “O
you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me” (Whitman 150), sorrow which gives a
birth to the poet. The culmination of the feeling of loss is evident in the following lines:

Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,

Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,

Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there, in the night
(Whitman 152-154)
The anaphoric repetition of the words “never more” is a parallel to the birds loss of hope
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expressed by “never again” cited above and identical to Poe’s use in “The Raven” This is now
the boys dirge about the loss of childhood and safety.

According to Marc van Doren, this realization alone is enough to make a good poem and
a good poet, but what makes Whitman a great poet and this poem one of the masterpieces is the
realization that comes after. Van Doren states that in most of his poems Whitman’s effect is
somehow watered down because he is very appreciative of everything that’s natural and devoted
to praising life but what’s necessary is to incorporate death in the poetry because without death
there is no life as we know it. In this remarkable poem Whitman manages to incorporate death
and by writing about it he actually writes about life as it is and thus makes this poem a
masterpiece (Van Doren 48).

If we say that the birth of the poet is the overall theme in this poem then we must say that
theme of death is crucial in that process. In the ecstasy of the realization of himself as a poet the
boy is near the sea, which provides an undertone and is first mentioned as the old mother
“incessantly crying” (Whitman 141). When the boy finally dares to ask for the meaning of all the
suffering in life expressed in one word it comes from the sea and the waves repeat “ death, death,
death, death” (Whitman 169) in their sweet lulling rhythm. To the boy, this word is suddenly
delicious, it makes him understand everything, it ”laves him softly all over” (Whitman 172)
because it gives him the most important meaning that everything is in a cycle, everything comes
and goes, happiness and sorrow, love and loss, life and death. This realization is what makes his
art great because as he says:

Which I do not forget,

But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,

That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,

With the thousand responsive songs, at random,

My own songs, awaked from that hour;

And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
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The word of the sweetest song, and all songs, (Whitman 74-80)
it enables him to fuse death with everything he writes thus giving everything the true meaning.
At the very end of the poem we have a picture of an old woman rocking the cradle whispering
“death” which creates a sort of paradox on which Davis and Wilson comment:

The word “death” whispered by the sea means essentially the same as the “key word”
emerging out of the endless rocking of the cradle except that “cradle” is itself highly
suggestive of life, young life and hence birth.(Davis, Wilson 165)
therefore, death, itself, is not the meaning it is only a transition towards rebirth and new life.
With this in mind it is no wonder that the ending of the poem is so peaceful and the atmosphere
is that of peace and satisfaction.

By speaking alternately about happiness and sorrow, love and loss of the loved one, life
and death the poet underlines his basic idea, the idea of the cycle of life. This theme makes even
the flow of this poem cyclical since it starts from the picture of love and happiness then through
the loss of happiness, hope and death it comes to rebirth and new life (Van Doren, 48). The line
in the first sentence, which was mentioned above: “Out of the ninth-month midnight” (Whitman
3) is available for multiple interpretations, for not only does it refer to the culmination of
pregnancy, which was already mentioned, but also to the month of September. This particular
month is very convenient for illustrating the idea of cycle of life, since it is the beginning of
autumn and death of vegetation but it is, as well, the time when vegetation bears fruits and seeds,
thus the beginning of new life. In addition to this, a bit later in the poem, Whitman also mentions
the Fifth month, that is the month of May suggestive of spring and birth, again fusing life and
death into one whole.

In this cycle death seems to represent a sort of frame for life, or as Marc Van Doren puts
it “death is the pre-eminent theme for poetry, since it is the enveloping force, the beginning and
end framing the middle – life”. (Van Doren, 46.), and the realization of it defines life in itself.
This idea goes together with “the fact that death, loss, suffering, a sense of guilt and personal
fragmentation is the source of poetry of high distinction” ( Pacić, 198), since physical and mental
suffering broaden one’s perspectives and open new spiritual vistas, thus, giving birth to
something new, in this case the art of poetry.
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Finally, it would be good to analyze the ocean as the central symbol of the poem, because
it forms an element which unifies the most important themes. Whitman regarded it as the unity
of life, death and rebirth and drawn much of his inspiration from it. He associates it with birth for
two reasons, first, for its constant movement which resembles the rocking of the cradle, hence,
the first line and the title, secondly, shortly before the publishing of the poem Charles Darwin
came up with the idea that all living creatures on the Earth come from the sea. On the other hand,
“darkness and depth below the illusory stillness of the surface” (Matthiessen 566) is highly
suggestive of unknown and death. The setting of the poem, that is the seashore, is according to
Whitman a place of perfect balance, right in between what Melville referred to as “unshored
harborless immensities” and “land’s peaceful margin of safety” (Matthiessen 566). That is the
place where “the solid is marrying the liquid” (Whitman, 135), where the two antagonists meet
and fuse, like male and female, real and ideal making one another complete. This way he
“instinctively adopts sexual symbolism which is nearly always at the root of his most living
utterance” (Mattheissen 565), like in the lines “O madly the sea pushes upon the land,/ With
love, with love” (Whitman 77-78). Therefore, this setting has the potential to give birth to a poet
and provide the inspiration for a great work of art. Whitman also said that he intended to write a
piece of prose or verse about the sea-shore exclusively but it somehow, unwittingly to him,
happened that he never did but it was an underlying theme in all his works (Whitman 135).

To summarize the analysis of this poem, one has to admit that this is definitely one of the
masterpieces of not only American but the world’s poetry. The reasons for this are probably best
stated by Davis and Wilson:

“The choice of themes such as birth, death and resurrection is common to almost all the
world’s religious and cultural myths and for those themes he was able to find appropriate
atmosphere, symbolic imagery and rhythm. This is one of the masterpieces in which the
poet transcends not only his personality but also the national consciousness.” (Davis,
Wilson 4)

The impact of Whitman’s work as a whole on the American culture is immense and if we
were to ask if he succeeded in his goal to become a seer, a prophet, one of the fathers of the new
nation the answer would probably be affirmative because nowadays he is viewed as of the
crucial figures in the formation of the American national consciousness. This is certainly even
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more so bearing in mind the idea that his influence is undisputedly present in the works of D.H
Lawrence and Ezra Pound and many important modern American writers such as Jack Kerouac,
William S. Burroughs and Michael Cunningham to name a few. Ezra Pound even said about
Whitman that he is not only “America’s poet…he is America” (Pound 8). Therefore, it would be
impossible to talk about modern American literature if it had not been for Whitman.

Placing Whitman in wider artistic context and bearing in mind the period in which he
lived and created, he can be viewed as a figure which connects romanticism with modernism.
His insistence on the importance of intuitive and sensual rather than rational is also one of the
most important premises of the modernist movement and if we add that Lawrence and Pound
who were among the central figures of the movement were strongly influenced by him, then it is
not inappropriate to say that Whitman was one of the figures who formed the setting out of
which the modernist movement sprang.
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References:

 Allen, Gay Wilson and Charles T. Davis. Walt Whitman’s Poems. New York: New
York University Press, 1955. Print.
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays 1845. New York: General Books. 2009. Print.
 Karanfilović N. Practice Classes. University of Novi Sad. March, 2011.
 Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000. Print.
 Matthiessen, Francis Otto. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of
Emerson and Whitman. London: Oxford University Press, 1941. Print.
 Pacić, Brankica. The Big Ten Major Nineteenth Century American Writers. Niš:
Univerzitet u Nišu, 1991. Print.
 Pound, Ezra. Walt Whitman. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962. Print.
 Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.
 Van Doren, Marc. The Happy Critic. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961. Print.
 Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York: Modern library, 1993. Print.
 Whitman, Walt. Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892. Print.