Out of the ceaselessly rocking cradle of the sea waves, a memory comes back to the

poet. He recalls that as a child, he left his bed and "wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot"
in search of the mystery of life and death. He is a man now but "by these tears a little boy
again," and he throws himself on the shore "confronting the waves." He is a "chanter of
pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter," and he uses all his experiences but goes
beyond them.

The experience he now recalls is that on the Paumanok seashore one May, when lilacs
were in bloom, he observed two mockingbirds, "feather'd guests from Alabama." The
female crouch'd on her nest, silent," and the male went "to and fro near at hand." The
birds sang of their love; the words "two together" summed up their existence. One day
the female disappeared, "may-be kill'd, unknown to her mate." The male anxiously
awaited her, He addressed the wind: "I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me." His
song penetrated the heart of the curious boy who "treasur'd every note for he understood
the meaning of the bird, whom he called his "brother."

The bird's lament, or "aria," affected the boy deeply. Every shadow seemed to the bird
the hoped-for shape of his mate reappearing. He had loved, but now "we two [are]
together no more.

The notes of the bird were echoed by the moaning sea, "the fierce old mother." To the
boy who became the poet, "to the outsetting bard," the sea hinted at secrets. The boy
eagerly asked the sea to let him know the ultimate meaning, "the word final, superior to
all." Before daybreak the sea whispered to the poet the "delicious word death . . . /Death,
death."

In this experience the boy attempted to fuse the vision of the sea with that of the bird, and
this knowledge marked the beginning of the poet in him. The bird, the solitary singer, was
a projection of the boy's consciousness. The sea, like the "old crone rocking the cradle,"
whispered the key word in his ears.

This poem was first published under the title "A Child's Reminiscence" (1859), was later
called "A Word out of the Sea" (1860), and the present, highly symbolic title was given it
in 1871. The present title suggests "a word from the sea," and that word is death, which
is the second phase in the process of birthdeath-rebirth.

The poem, an elegy, is thought to be based on an intensely personal experience of the

poet. just what that experience was is a favorite but fruitless field of speculation for
Whitman's biographers. The poem asserts the triumph of the eternal life over death. The
meaning of the poem is not stated explicitly, but it springs naturally from a recollection of
the narrator's childhood days. Whitman imaginatively recreates the childhood experience
of this inquiring lad and also shows how the boy becomes a man, and the man, a poet.
This time sequence is as much the essence of the poem as is the growth of the
consciousness of the poet. Memory plays an important part in this dramatic development.
First, the boy tries to absorb the moving song of the mockingbird. Later, the boy replaces
the bird as a significant character in the drama because he attempts to fuse the substance
of the bird's song with the secret emanating from the sea; this synthesis is, in essence,
his poetry. The word "death" is "delicious" because it is a prerequisite for rebirth. Thus
the secret of life which the boy grasps from the sea is the recurrent pattern of birth-death-
rebirth.

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is one of Whitman's great poems because of his
use of image and symbol. The title itself is a symbol of birth. The sun and the moon, the
land and the sea, and the stars and the sea waves contribute to the atmosphere and
symbolic scenery in the poem. These images deepen the effect of the emotions in the
poem, as in the bird's song, and are part of the dramatic structure. The poem is very
melodious and rhythmic and may itself be compared to an aria (in opera, an aria is an
elaborate melody sung by one voice). Its use of dactylic and trochaic meter is very
appropriate in describing the motion of the sea waves and their meaning.

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

The Romantic influence is apparent in this poem as Whitman recalls a moment in

childhood from the wise, adult perspective. And since Whitman is known for his
reflections on poetry and the role of the poet (if you're interested in his views, read
the 1855 preface to Leaves of Grass on pages 2080- 2094 and his "Letter to Ralph
Waldo Emerson on pages 2138-2145), it isn't surprising that the moment he
chooses to revisit is when he realized that poetry was his avocation.

He opens with the image of a child leaving the warmth and safety of his bed to
wander along the beach. There is no indication that he is searching for something
specific, but the poem quickly focuses on the bird who called him -- and this
memory brings back all of the emotions of childhood within the context of the
present: " . . .by these tears a little boy again/ Throwing myself on the sand,
confronting the waves/ I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter/
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them/ A reminiscence
sing."

Whitman recalls watching the bird family with its "she-bird crouch'd on her nest"
and the "he-bird to and fro near at hand" as the boy watched and waited, filled with
curiosity. The birds' song is joyful and full of mutual love as he listens from a safe
distance until one day the she-bird was gone and the he-bird's song changed to a
solitary lament for his lost love.

As the adult Whitman recalls the song of the bird, he feels a kinship with the
mourning lover that certainly escaped him as a child, but his recollection of the
bird's passion and his ability to express that emotion through words touched off
his desire to emulate the bird/poet. The boy listening to the song "with bare feet"
and "the wind wafting" through his hair leads to questions about the bird's intent
as the bird ceases to be a part of nature and becomes either a demon or a
muse: "Now in a moment I know what I am, I awake/ And already a thousand
singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours/ A
thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die." And from
this moment on, Whitman is changed from the "peaceful child" to a "messenger"
who can never find peace because there is always another tale to tell.

The song of the bird combines with the whisper of the ocean to awaken the poet in
Whitman. The ebb and flow of the ocean symbolizes renewal and the cycles of
life, death, and rebirth that so moved Whitman.

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

On the surface, this poem is an elegy for President Lincoln. Whitman, however,
also used Lincoln's death and this poetic form to make a larger point about grief
and the ways in which the poet moves from silent mourning to poetic mourning
that honors the dead as he moves from the intensely personal to the impersonal.

The first section of the poem creates the setting. Whitman's visual images include
not just the "great star" that has "droop'd in the western sky" but also the more
simplistic image of the whitewashed farmhouse with a beautiful, blooming lilac
bush in the front yard. The lilac itself symbolizes an ideal -- it is everything that is
naturally beautiful and alive. Whitman talks about the sensual appeal of the lilac
using sight, smell, and touch before he introduces the thrush, another recurring
physical symbol of an ideal. The thrush is a "solitary . . hermit" that sings a
mournful song of death because he must sing or die -- the bird is Whitman's brother
poet; they share the bond of poetry.

The second section follows the progression of Lincoln's coffin across the
country. Whitman shows nature and humanity honoring the dead president in
stanzas five and six -- the "sea of faces and the unbared heads" greet the coffin
alongside of the "yellow-speared wheat" and the "apple tree blows of white and
pink."

At the end of stanza six, Whitman offers his "spring of lilac" to Lincoln's coffin,
making a symbolic offering of life (the lilac) to an enduring symbol of death (the
coffin). But in stanza seven, he clarifies his offering's meaning -- even though it
has been laid on Lincoln's coffin, he wishes to honor all of the dead and even death
itself whom he calls "O sane and sacred death."

Whitman continues to maintain his three primary symbols throughout the poem as
he alternately addresses the star and the thrush in stanzas eight and nine. He
recalls his last moments with the star who "had something to tell" as they walked
through the night, and he assures the thrush that he has only been temporarily
detained by "the star my departing comrade" -- he intends to join the thrush as a
tribute to "the large sweet soul that has gone" and hopes to "perfume the grave of
him I love" with his song.

Stanzas eleven through twelve discuss the living things that Whitman will use to
adorn Lincoln's grave, including the "fresh sweet herbage," "the pale green
leaves," and the city with its teeming humanity. Whitman emphasizes the cycle of
life through a blatant description of the cycle of day and night beginning with the
"violet and purple morn" and ending with the "welcome night and stars." Although
he doesn't make the connection himself, it is impossible not to think of the
implications of this cycle -- the day "dies" and becomes night, but it renews itself
and reappears in the morning. This type of "Immortality" must have appealed to a
man who grieved for President Lincoln and his vision of America.

Stanza fourteen begins with a catalog of life in the city as it continues despite the
tragedy of death and ends with the bird's song. Through the bird, Whitman learns
that death is an inevitable part of life that should be embraced as a "dark mother"
and a "strong deliveress" that comforts the body as it "nestl[es]" near, and this
forces the poet to reassess his reaction to the loss of Lincoln. As he envisions the
dead soldiers on a nameless battlefield, he suddenly realizes that "they were not
as was thought." The dead are not suffering because they are at rest; however, the
living suffered because they were left with a void in their lives: "the mother
suffer'd/ And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd/ And the
armies that remain'd suffer'd".

The final stanza tells of Whitman's realization "unloosing the hold of [his]
comrades' hands" and allowing him to leave the lilac intact in the dooryard
"blooming, returning with spring." And the poem ends on a positive note as all of
the main symbols are combined into one image: "Lilac and star and bird twined
with the chant of my soul/ There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and
dim."

This poem was written in 1859 and incorporated into the 1860 edition of Leaves
of Grass. It describes a young boy’s awakening as a poet, mentored by nature
and his own maturing consciousness. The poem is loose in its form, except for
the sections that purport to be a transcript of the bird’s call, which are musical
in their repetition of words and phrases. The opening of the poem is marked by
an abundance of repeated prepositions describing movement—out, over,
down, up, from—which appear regularly later in the poem and which convey
the sense of a struggle, in this case the poet’s struggle to come to
consciousness.
Unlike most of Whitman’s poems, “Out of the Cradle” has a fairly distinct plot
line. A young boy watches a pair of birds nesting on the beach near his home,
and marvels at their relationship to one another. One day the female bird fails
to return. The male stays near the nest, calling for his lost mate. The male’s
cries touch something in the boy, and he seems to be able to translate what the
bird is saying. Brought to tears by the bird’s pathos, he asks nature to give him
the one word “superior to all.” In the rustle of the ocean at his feet, he discerns
the word “death,” which continues, along with the bird’s song, to have a
presence in his poetry.

Commentary

This is another poem that links Whitman to the Romantics. The “birth of the
poet” genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose
massive Prelude details his artistic coming-of-age in detail. Like Wordsworth,
Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is
inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to
anthropomorphize, and nature gives him very specific answers to his questions
about overarching concepts. Nature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can
project himself. He conquers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him
that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission.
The epiphany surrounding the word “death” seems appropriate, for in other
poems of Whitman’s we have seen death described as the ultimate tool for
democracy and sympathy. Here death is shown to be the one lesson a child
must learn, whether from nature or from an elder. Only the realization of death
can lead to emotional and artistic maturity. Death, for one as interested as
Whitman in the place of the individual in the universe, is a means for achieving
perspective: while your thoughts may seem profound and unique in the
moment, you are a mere speck in existence. Thus the contemplation of death
allows for one to move beyond oneself, to consider the whole. Perhaps this is
why the old crone disrupts the end of the poem: she symbolizes an alternative
possibility, the means by which someone else may have come to the same
realization as Whitman. In the end the bird, although functionally important in
Whitman’s development, is insignificant in the face of the abstract sea: death,
which is the concept he introduces, remains as the important factor.

Thus although “Out of the Cradle” can be described as a poem about the birth
of the poet, it can also be read as a poem about the death of the self. In the
end, on the larger scale, these two phenomena are one and the same.