Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is a poem by Walt Whitman, published in Whitman's Leaves of Grass collection. "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is found in the title section, Sea-Drift. It was originally called 'A child's Reminiscence' and was published individually by the New York Saturday Press on 24th December 1859. It was included in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass[1] under the title A Word Out of the Sea (and occasionally erroneously referred to, even by Whitman himself, as A Voice Out of the Sea.)[2]

The plot is about a young boy walking on the beach, who finds two mockingbirds nesting and watches them. The female bird fails to appear one day, and the male bird cries out for her. The bird's cries create an awakening in the boy, who translates what the male is saying in the rest of the poem. As this happens, the boy recognizes the impact of nature on the human soul and his own burgeoning consciousness.[3]

The poem is an excellent example of Whitman's romanticism and his recurring themes of love, sexuality, death, and loss.


References

  1. ^ www.waltwhitmanarchive.org
  2. ^ Traubel, Horace; Schmidgall, Gary (2001). Intimate with Walt: selections from Walt Whitman's conversations with Horace Traubel, 1888-1892. University of Iowa Press. p. 29. ISBN 0877457670. 
  3. ^ Bauerlein, Mark.The Walt Whitman Archive http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_43.html
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