The University of Notre Dame

Death in Whitman: A Symbolic Process of Immortality

Author(s): Sister Barbara Ewell
Source: Notre Dame English Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1/2 (1970/1971), pp. 29-38
Published by: The University of Notre Dame
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 DEATHIN WHITMAN:A SYMBOLIC
PROCESS
OF IMMORTALITY

Sister Barbara Ewell, SSND

University of Notre Dame

I am not sure but the last enclosing

sublimation of Race or Poem, is What
it thinks of Death. •*•
Walt Whitman's high estimate of the signifi-
cance of the death-concept among a people or in a
work of art seems a somewhat incongruous statement
for a poet who is celebrated for his exuberant at-
titude toward life and the living. But as Whitman
himself says in his "Preface" of 1876, the cluster
of poems on death that he gathered for publication
in his old age were not significantly different
from what he had always been trying to say in
Leaves of Grass; in fact, they gave
freer vent and freer expression to what
from the first, and so on throughout,
more or less lurks in my writings, un-
derneath every page, every line, every-
where. 2
The pervasiveness of death as a theme in
Leaves of Grass hardly requires elaboration. From
the 1855 edition with the poignant concern ex-
pressed for death and time in "To Think of Time11
and parts of lfSong of Myself,11 through various ma-
jor poems like "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry11 or "Out of
the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and the clusters of
poems dealing with the Civil War (in which death
becomes so immediate) and with "Whispers of Heaven-
ly Death" and "Songs of Parting" (which came sur-
prisingly early in his career), Whitman manifested
a preoccupation with the necessity and mystery of
death. That such themes would so obsess a poet of
Whitman1s vitality is no anomaly, however, when one
considers Whitman's own developing conceptions of

29

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30

the meaning and import of death. For Whitman,

death never appeared as a reality to be feared or
shunned. Instead, in his poems, death was not only
an acceptable fact of life, but indeed- unfathom-
able mystery that it remained- it became symbolic
of one of the central elements of his vision: im-
mortality.

Puzzling as it first appears, the use of death

as a symbol for what is ostensibly its direct anti-
thesis is closely related to the nature and opera-
tion of symbol in Whitman1 s poems. Writing a po-
etry that proceeds chiefly by "the divine law of
indirections'1^ and that finally leaves unsaid what
is most important, Whitman had to rely much on sug-
gestiveness and audience-effect to convey his po-
etic vision. For him, then, the symbolic mode with
its double perspectives was readily suited to his
purposes. As Charles Feidelson suggests, the sym-
bol as used by Whitman is, furthermore, intensely
active. 4 Essentially a process rather than a sta-
tic element, the symbol-like the poem - actually
participates in the creation of that to which it
refers. Thus, in some sense, Whitman's symbols
represent an aspect of the creative word, and a
type of the sign that effects what it signifies -
both for the creator who makes his meanings as he
speaks them and for the audience who enact in them-
selves what is spoken. It is in this context of
the symbol - like the poem - as process, that Whit-
man's use of death is made clear.

In "out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

(1859), a relatively early and very fine poem,
Whitman attempts to set forth in biographical terms
his initial efforts in grappling with the meaning
of death. Appearing significantly among the poems
in the 1876 Two Rivulet s, the volume Whitman
fl almost Death's
called book, "5 "Chit of the Cradle11
is a reminiscence of a childhood experience that
first intimated to the speaker the nature of his
destiny - both as poet and as mortal.

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 31

The poem begins like a ritual incantation,

rhythmically eliciting from the past all the ele-
ments that comprised the original experience.
Loosely gathering these fragmented recollections,
the "chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and
hereafter11 (1. 20) confronts these waves of memory
and proceeds to reconstruct them into a pattern of
poetic insight.

The focus of the reminiscence is the !ttwo

feather'd guests from Alabama11 (1. 26), who one sum-
mer captured the attention of the now-grown boy.
"Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating"(l. 31)
these two at their timeless love, the "curious boy"
shares briefly in their exuberant joy of life. How-
ever, it is not their life together, but the subse-
quent loss that is the real lesson of the birds.
Deprived of his mate - "maybe kill'd" - the he-bird
begins a lament that with its soothing cadences and
repetitions represents one of Whitman1 s most lyri-
cal pieces. In his song, translated now by the boy
who "listen1 d long and long" to its wail, the bird
poignantly expresses his pain at the loss of fe-
male. Not consciously a death-dirge at first, the
song is filled with longing and sorrow and the in-
tense, but expectant loneliness of one who has once
loved. Unable to find solace or to have his expec-
tations fulfilled by any of the various alterna-
tives to which he uneasily turns--land and sea,
moonlight and dark, shrillness and quiet - the bird
sinks gradually into lonely despair. The "carols
of lonesome love" become explicitly "death's car-
ols," and there is finally only the sense of bitter
loss:
We two together no more. (1. 129)
For the boy, the bird's song precipitates an
awareness of the meanings of his own aches of "love
in the heart long pent" (1. 136). Paradoxically,
the understanding of love is reached only through

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32

the recognition of its loss. It is not the bright

experience of love, but the dark pain of its ab-
sence that opens to him its meanings. The sharing
of the he-bird1 s exquisit pain awakens in the
child a consciousness of his own destiny as a sing-
er of "a thousand songs clearer, louder and more
sorrowful11 (1. 147) than the bird's and intimates
to him the expense of his own "unsatisfied love."

However, this newly -roused awareness of pur-

pose remains somehow incomplete; and the boy de-
mands from the sea, whose quiet, incessant rhythms
have subtly dominated the lyric,
A word final, superior to all. (1. 161)
This final reason spoken by the sea - this deepest
meaning of the ache of love that is revealed in
loss~is death. It is death--man' s mortal ity--that
is the key to the consciousness evoked by the bird.
But significantly, this word whispered by the sea-
waves to the boy is neither inimical nor frighten-
ing to him. Rather it is a 1flow, delicious word...
Hissing melodiously. . .laving me softly all over...
the word of the sweetest song and all songs'1; "that
strong and delicious word11 that soothes rather than
disturbs. The submerged personification of the sea
and its word throughout the poem as mother further
buttresses the gentle and caressing qualities of
that which should seemingly terrify. "Fierce11 and
"savage," the "old mother" does bring pain, but it
is pain associated with life. The sea is the fer-
tile mother of the "Ninth-month midnight" message
which with its ambivalent qualities is like "some
old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet gar-
ments, bending aside" (l# 182). Thus, although the
word of the life-giving sea is death, it is never-
theless consoling. Like an ugly but careful mother,
the sea has provided the sought -for "clew11 to the
boy's anxious uncertainties. Death becomes the
whispered secret of the "sweet hell within," the
meaning of the ache that lies pregnant with an-
swers.

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 33

The consoling qualities of death and its fun-

damental relationship to love become progressively
clearer in Whitman's poetry, especially through the
development of the Calamus group a year later in
I860. Although many of the poems in the section
express this motif, "Scented Herbage of My Breast"
states the theme most concisely. Using the meta-
phor of the group title, the calamus plant, Whitman
builds up a complex cluster of meanings that at-
tempts to clarify and expand his notion of "adhe-
sive love" so central to these poems. With the in-
evitable pun on "leaves," Whitman collapses the
double reference to visible foliage and the pages
of a book into a single referent that is identified
with the gleaned fruit of thought as well as the
perennial grass arising from man's grave. The sug-
gestion of immortality in these associations deep-
ens with the exploration of "the heart this is
under" (1. 7) - the roots of the plant and the love
that it manifests.

At first a message "for life," the "leaves"

are recognized through the bitterness and sting of
their roots to be instead a "chant of lovers. ..for
death" (l. 12). But just as in "Out of the Cradle^1
death, when it is recognized through love- the
"heart" and roots of the leaves - is a consolation
rather than a threat:
Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is
finally beautiful except death and love?) (1. 11)
For the poet, these hidden sources that speak of
death become then suddenly identical with the visi-
ble message:
Indeed 0 death, I think now these leaves
mean precisely the same as you mean. (1. 16)
Love and death and the song that they both generate
and emerge from become inextricably intertwined.

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34

Abandoning the physical metaphor- -the l!emblem-

atic and capricious blades1' --as having grown incap-
able of sustaining the heavy burdens of meanings
imposed upon it, the poet offers to speak directly,
to "say what I have to say by itself" (1. 23). What
he then speaks are "the words... to make death ex-
hilarating" (1. 27). Recognizing his mistaking of
the purpose of his songs as being for life rather
than for death, the poet now assumes even the tone
of death# The love of comrades--Whitmanl s vehicle
of intensely spiritualizing love--is perceived to
be "folded inseparably together" with death. But
penetrating still further the mystery of his dis-
covery, he sees in death not only a constituent of
love, but the hidden basis of all reality. Death
is the "real reality" residing behind t'the mask of
materials" that we know as the physical world. A
recurrent theme in Whitman, this mystic penetration
of the veil of appearances emerges here as the es-
sential aspect and import of death; and death, in
turn, becomes the "purports essential" of life#

In this way, the physical dimensions of life

that Whitman celebrates so insistently in the
"Children of Adam" cluster immediately preceding
"Calamus" and elsewhere in Leaves of Grass are shown
to be paradoxically ephemeral and thus finally in-
appropriate as the manifestation of the deep spiri-
tual love expressed in the poems. Cast off like
the inadequate "leaves" metaphor, life with its
transient materiality "that does not last so very
long" is replaced by the intransient immortality of
death-- that "will last very long"- as the truly ap-
propriate expression of adhesive love. As it is
the ache of love that awakens the consciousness of
death as the transporting reality of life, so, as
James Miller says, "death, then, represents the
only means to the consummation of genuinely and
deeply felt spiritual love."6 Providing in its
superiority the proper medium for the expression of
love, death becomes finally the real vehicle of
transcendence and the way to immortality.

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 35

Although implicit throughout the development

of Leaves of Gi ass } Whiuiian* s final sLaieiueul of
the symbolic relationship existing between death
and immortality appeared some ten years later in
"Passage to India* !f Written ostensibly as a cele-
bration of maa's physical unification of the globe,
the poem was considered by Whitman himself to rep-
resent the core of his works on !!the sphere of the
resist gravitation of Spiritual Law11' and a
central example of his "thoughts, or radiations
from thoughts, on Death, Immortality, and a free
entrance into the Spiritual world. "^ Indeed, this
latter phrase provides an important note to the na-
ture of Whitman's use of death as a symbol.

As the conclusion of "Scented Herbage" inti-

mates, death is understood in Leaves of Grass as
the elusive means to transcendence; it is, in ef-
fect, a passage from one state of physical imperma-
nence to one of spiritual infinity. Whitman used
repeatedly the image of the voyage to suggest this
very function of death in numerous minor poems as
well as "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "When Lilacs
Last in the Dooryard Bloom1 d," and finally "Passage
to India."

Rather appropriately for a poem about what

Whitman called "that other pervading invisible
fact,"^ death, the central theme of "Passage to In-
dia" is approached only indirectly. What is actu-
ally confronted in the poem are the elements of hu-
man finitude and mortality, space and time. Be-
ginning with the achievements of the present in the
conquest of these mortal enemies of man's limitless
aspirations, the poem moves steadily through its
own defeat of space and time. Spatial and temporal
terms merge and fuse in the poetic descriptions
that mark and achieve this conquest. The joining
of east and west and the historical sweep that an-
ticipated and desired its accomplishment are depic-
ted with growing indistinguishability. Thus the
"Passage to India" in section 2 is a journey back
into mythic time, while history in section 4 is

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36

imagined concretely as having "slopes" down which

goes
>V4as a rivulet running, sinking now, and
now again to the surface rising
A ceaseless thought, a varied train.
(11. 73-74)
By blurring its distinctions and borders, this fu-
sion of time and space effects the conquest of the
finite.

Viewing the "vast Rondure" of the earth from a

perspective outside these dimensions, the speaker's
thought first "begins to span" the spatial and tem-
poral depths of this physical world in section 5.
Not only does he see the whole globe "swimming in
space," but all time as well:
Down from the gardens of Asia descending
radiating,
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad
progeny after them. (11. 88-89)
This ever-expanding thought reaches finally to en-
compass even the deep-rooted question that forms
the "sad incessant refrain" of the "feverish chil-
dren" of men: "Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and
Whither £ mocking life?" (1. 92). As in "Out of
the Cradle" and "Scented Herbage," it is the pain
of longing and the frustration of unsatisfied love
that lies most heavily on mankind, forced to live
on an
...(unloving earth, without a throb to
answer ours,
Cold earth, the place of graves.) (ll# 97-98)
However, the very obduracy of this "cold, impassive,
voiceless earth" with the painful yearnings that it
both occasions and represents is, by the thought
and word of the poet, overcome. By the word of the
"true son of God," all things come together and are
fused; and without disunity and fragmentation, fi-
nitude and limitation are meaningless. The mergence

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 37

of and immersion into the physical that this fusion

represents thus accomplish their own transcendence.

That the conquest of space and time have been

the conquest of death becomes evident in the final
sections of the poem when the poet enters into his
own mystical experience of the release from the
spatio-temporal that death affords. However, the
experience also makes clear that the conquest of
death is not achieved by its destruction, but ra-
ther by submission to it. Having pressed through
the confusing welter of fused materiality, the poet
challenges his soul to embark on its own passage.
Launching out into those "superior universes," how-
ever, he quickly realizes in himself the total in-
adequacy of the physical on such a journey. Puz-
zled and awe-struck by the "shapeless vastnesses of
space," he finds that the immersion into the infi-
nite - "the thought of God" - simply and swiftly
shrivels his physical being. This imaginative mys-
tical death, however, unexpectedly unfolds to him a
greater and more sublime state of existence than he
had experienced while physically "alive." The "ac-
tual Me" is suddenly released through death into a
position of absolute control:
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses
of Space. (11. 209-211)
Death becomes the real passage to the "more than
India" of the immortal spirit- where at last, the
"aged fierce enigmas" are resolved and love is com-
pleted and satisfied.

The imaginative quest achieved, however, the

poet turns immediately to the expression of his
longing for "the real reality" - the passage of
death itself. Breaking out into ecstatic cries of
anticipation that finally gives way to virtual in-
coherence, he calls to his soul to set forth imme-
diately, to "Sail forth--steer for the deep waters
only" (1. 248). In his longing, the voyage - the

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38

way to the transcendent- -becomes itself a surrogate

for its object. The journey which is death is
sought for almost in itself. Death as the means to
immortality becomes its equivalent, because here,
as elsewhere in Whitman, the process of achievement
is, in fact, the fundamental element of experience.
The consolation of death, then, is in its meaning-
its power to open man to the infinite and to tran-
scend the limitations of the physical. Means and
end identify as the process becomes one with its
product. In his vision of ultimate unity, the po-
et1 s longing for death is symbolic of his longing
for the immortality that it will accomplish; for,
as he confidently concludes:
are they not all the seas of God? (1# 254)

NOTES

lflPreface 1876," in Leaves of Grass, eds. H.W.

Blodgett and S. Bradley (New York, 1965), p. 745,
11. 13-14n. All further reference to Whitman's
works will be to this edition.
2Ibid. , 11. 9-lln.
Leaves of Grass, "Laws for Creation, ff 1.5, p,
386.
4
Charles Feidelson, "Whitman as Symbolist,"
from Symbolism and American Literature (Chicago,
1953), pp. 16-27. In Whitman: A Collection of Cri-
tical Essays, R. H. Pearce, ed. (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J., 1962), p. 84.
5"Preface," 1. 4, p. 744.
James E# Miller, Jr., A Critical Guide to
"Leaves of Grass11 (Chicago, 1957), p. 75.
"Preface 1876," 1. 36n., p. 746.
8
Ibid., 1# 45n., p. 746.
Ibid. , 10 20n#, p. 745.

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