Analysis of “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” by Walt Whitman

I wrote this five years ago. I was just writing a paper, and thought it was amusing to explore. Now I realize it was incredibly insightful, and makes the paper a proof of itself, which is fascinating to me.

Samuel Owens

Survey of American Literature

Professor McDaniels

03/03/13

Analysis of “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” by Walt  Whitman

            The title of the poem begins with an apparent reference to eternal childhood.  It harkens back to William Wordsworth's reference of nature.  William Wordsworth gave the interpretation of the earliest childhood experience as the unconscious experience of nature through animalistic sensations.  This allows for how the poet is able to understand the language of nature without explaining how the language came to him.  Nature with a capital “N” brings its power to the author, and the universal mind makes its power known through song.  The subject of the poem centers on death and sex, which are very Wordsworthian topics.  The cradle endlessly rocking is nature itself, as all things that the poet was aware of that has been giving birth to all life is the earth itself.  Not once in his wonder for the great things in Nature is God referred to, except the wondrous things in nature itself as reflected in its two constants of sex, birth, and death.  Moores writes “This alternative way of knowing entails the merging of self and other, a living cosmos endowed with consciousness, a monistic ontology, love as a higher alternative to normal rational awareness, the privileging of sound and silence over traditional linguistic utterance, a poetics of prophecy, and an anti-religion (Moores, 1).”

            The first three lines uses the same word for emphasis three times, and they seem to signify the three stages of birth, life, and death.  I already illustrated the significance for the opening title, and the second talks about the life-song of the mocking bird.  The mocking bird is an imitation bird, and the significance of the imitation song suggests that it is not real.  The third line breezes over the second line, suggesting that the story of the imitation life-song is insignificant compared to what is universal and real to all people; which is life and death.  He writes “Out of the Ninth-month midnight.” (Whitman, 72) The cradle endlessly rocking is the first link to birth, and although there is no other reason to capitalize the word “Ninth”, he does.  This suggests that there is some significance to the gesture, and linking it to nature would directly connect it to Wordsworth, thus one may reasonably infer that this also refers to “Nature” with a capital “N.”  The line also links birth with death, as midnight is the gateway between the end of one day, and the beginning of another.  It then employs eight uses of the word “from” and then descends into another Wordsworthian usage of imagery of early maturity as an awareness of nature in reminiscence reengaging nature again.  This could be also a direct reference to the poem “Nutting” which both seek to use the poems to showcase the birthplace of themselves as an artist.

            The transcendent nature of love is shown by the cries of the mocking birds.  Although transcendent, the level of maturity of the bird is that of a child, that level that experiences nature unconsciously, that also reflects the maturity level of the child-narrator.  This is why the narrator calls him brother.  Just as in Wordsworth's “We are Seven” we see that the bird is unable to process the loss of his mate, as exemplified in the following lines; “Loud! loud! Loud!/ Loud I call to you, my love!/ High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,/ Surely you must know who is here, is here,/ You must know who I am, my love./Low-hanging moon!/ What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?/ O it is the shape, the shape of my mate.”(Whitman, 74)  It is a beautifully moving portrait of love that through its inability to process the awareness of nature as exemplified by death, the bird seeks to transcend death through the sheer longing of love for its mate.  In the first few lines I spoke of how the cry of the mockingbird is minimized, it is made clear that as the child-narrator becomes more in tune with the wonders of Nature all around him, it then minimizes the experience of the bird. 

            “For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping,/ now I have heard you,/ Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,/ and already a thousand singers, a thousand songs,/ clearer, louder/ and more sorrowful than yours,/ A thousand warbling echos have started to life/ within me, never to die.”(Whitman, 75)  This exemplifies further the birth of an artist, and the finding of immortality through the poet's artwork.

Death is what is whispered from the sea into the artists consciousness.  This reflects the birth of early maturity, as it becomes clear that the poet will express his birth and renewed life ironically with his new awareness of death.  This gives the poet transcendental force above the problems of an animals inability to comprehend death.  Death is superior to all, as the poet himself said that he is the one who has the “final word above all.”  His words regarding death's song are as follows, “Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly/ before daybreak,/ Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,/ And again death, death, death, death/ Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my/ arous'd child's heart,/ But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving/ me softly all over,/ Death, death, death, death, death./ Which I do not forget.”(Whitman, 76)  It is clear that death is the power that even has the last word on love on several occasions, but by understanding the songs of all nature, it may possess victory over death through the love as embodied by Nature.

            From this analysis it is clear that Whitman was a romantic who was heavily influenced by Wordsworth.  Death, love, and birth are the themes that are common throughout both works.  This is a birth of the poetic process, just as “Nutting” is in Wordsworth's poem exemplified in the fact that both show a loss of innocence through experience with the resulting birth of the poet himself through an understanding of the journey of nature.  Just as in “We are Seven” there is a childish non-comprehension  of death as regarded by the more mature eyes of the budding artist.  Nature is the power throughout this poem, and once again the capitalizing of “Ninth” is a direct nod to Wordsworth himself.  Therefore, one may conclude that this poem is an homage to the poet Wordsworth, as Whitman seems very conscious of what he owes the poet for the birth of his own poetry.

Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature,

            vol. C. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2011. Print.

Moores, D.J..  Mystical Discourse in Wordsworth and Whitman: a Transatlantic Bridge. Leuven

            Belgium: Peeters Publishers, 2006. Print.