“Out
of the Cradle.” Discuss as a love song. Who is it directed to
within the poem? Is Whitman also speaking to us of love?
Whitman’s Poem “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking,”
is not, at first glance, an obvious love poem. Most readers would
probably consider this a tragic poem about death and love lost. In
spite of the fact that the poem is about intrinsically sorrowful
events, or perhaps because of it, Whitman is able to capture a very
unique and poignant portrayal of love. There are three major
perspectives to examine how Whitman develops the theme of love in Out
of the Cradle, and by examining each reoccurring theme in the poem
separately, we can come to a more complete understanding of how they
work together to communicate Whitman’s message about love.
Perhaps the most complicated symbol within the poem “Out of the
Cradle Endlessly Rocking” is that of the moon. The Moon makes
its first appearance in line 10 when the poem’s general feeling
is of remembering fondly. The moon is described as yellow, late
risen, and “swollen as if with tears”—perhaps
foreshadowing the events that will transpire. In many ways, the
symbol of the moon reflects and sheds light on (both literally and
figuratively) the emotions that both the bird and the speaker of the
poem experience. For example, when the female bird has gone, and the
male is just beginning to search for her, the moon is full and the
boy hears the bird “under the moon”—inferring that
the moon is giving illumination. (47) The next example occurs in line
75-76. As the bird’s spirit sinks and it begins its song of
intense grief, the moon is then described as late rising and lagging
because it is heavy- much like a soul weighed down by intense grief.
Later, in line 102, when it is becoming obvious that the she-bird is
not coming back, the moon reflects this despair by hanging in the sky
as a “lagging, yellow, waning moon.” All three adjectives
(lagging, yellow, waning) suggest something that is hopeless and
dying out- like the hope that the mate will return. Just after the
birds voice cries out to the darkness “Oh I am very sick and
sorrowful” (120), thereby suggesting he has abandoned hope, the
moon appears in line 121 and 122 as a “troubled reflection”,
a brown, drooping halo in the sky. As the bird’s hope dwindles
and finally disappears, the moon turns from a yellow to a sickly
brown, from lagging to drooping, from waning to being merely a halo
in the sky. Each time the moon appears, it appears in a way that is a
striking reflection of the love of the bird.
The most obvious object Whitman uses to communicate about love is the
birds, the “feathered guests from Alabama”. (26) The
birds, male and female together, are the clearest example of love in
this poem. They sing together clear arias of their love; but the end
of their physical union does not necessitate the end of their love in
this poem. Whitman infers that a seagulls love is for life- at least,
this seagull’s love is for life. Whitman uses the image of the
bird to represent one of the most poignant facts about love: it does
not dissipate when one lover is gone or removed. In fact, as this
poem seems to indicate by the intensified love language in lines
82-85 and then again in lines 125-129, love seems to grow stronger
and more aching the longer the lover is away. As the bird mourns its
mate, bird and boy seem to grow closer. The bird moves from guest
(26) to brother (70) and the boy becomes a soul to be confided in
(69) rather than the careful observer of lines 30-31.
Although the birds love is significant, the boy is also an important
theme and the relationship between the two may be key to
understanding Whitman’s intention. Perhaps line 148 to 154 (And
already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder, and
more sorrowful than yours…) provides the best clue. Another
object of love is the boy in the poem, which the author’s voice
allows us to assume is Whitman himself. The awakening of the love of
the boy is perhaps the focal point of the poem. This is indicated in
the opening, midway, and closing lines of the poem. In the beginning,
Whitman describes “beginning notes of yearning and love…
from the thousand responses of my heart never to cease.”
(11-12) This seems to indicate that the feelings of love and yearning
are newly beginning in the boy, but will never cease. Near the
beginning of the poem, the reader finds an even stronger indication
of the boy’s awakening. In line sixty and sixty two, after the
bird has called upon the wind to blow his lost mate back, the boy
narrates “he pour’d forth the meanings that I of all men
know… the rest might not, but I have treasur’d every
note.” Indicating that not only has this experience awakened
his heart, it has awakened him very deeply, more deeply than other
men. A few pages later in the poem, in lines 136 and 137, Whitman
describes the boy as “barefoot” “ecstatically”
“dallying” in the sea and then “the love in the
heart long pent, now loose, now at last bursting;” as if this
extraordinary understanding he has been given by his brother (70) the
bird has loosed him completely. Finally, in the closing lines of the
poem, the newly awakened, but unnaturally astute boy begs the sea for
a message and the sea responds with “death.” (173) and,
mirroring lines 11 and 12, Whitman recalls, “My own songs
awakened from that hour.”
3) Whitman. “Lilacs.” How do the symbols of bird, star,
and lilacs bring out the sadness of his recollections of Lincoln?
Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”
centers around three major symbols: the bird, the star, and the
lilacs. Between these three symbols he creates what seems to be a
“trinity of symbols”. Though each symbol is carefully
eradicated and elaborated on separately, at key points in the poem,
near the beginning, middle, and end, Whitman brings all three symbols
together in one poetic image. He refers to them as “we comrades
three,” (127) “You (addressing the bird) I hear –
yet the star holds me… yet the lilac with mustering odor holds
me,” (106-107) and “Lilac and star and bird twined with
the chant of my soul.”(205) To understand this curious trinity,
we must first try to understand these symbols separately. The lilac
may perhaps represent memory or grief, the star, it may be reasoned,
is referring to Lincoln himself, and one can advance the theory that
the bird is symbolic of Whitman’s own theory on what death is.
While the lilac’s meaning as a symbol in this poem is much less
clear than the star or even the bird, the poem is infused with
references to lilacs, lilac bushes, and lilac sprigs. One possible
explanation for the scattering of references throughout the poem is
that Whitman is trying to emulate the scent of lilacs with words. In
other words, by scattering references to lilacs and the description
of their appearance (“pointed blossom rising delicate” in
line 14, “Blossoms and branches” in line 47) and scent
(“the perfume strong I love” in line 14, ‘mastering
odor’ in line 107) throughout the poem, Whitman may be trying
to demonstrate an important quality of lilacs: the scent does not go
away just because it is out of mind. The scent of lilacs is
inescapable, overpowering, and permeating. By scattering references
to lilacs throughout the poem, Whitman can emulate this permeation,
thereby associating the poem, sadness, and grief for Whitman with an
overpowering scent-- thus making the poem more memorable, more
powerful, and more sorrowful.
The symbol of the star is perhaps the least ambiguous of this poem.
The title of the work this poem was included in is “Memories of
President Lincoln” and the opening words to this poem refer to
a great star falling and then disappearing. It would be an
appropriate metaphor, since, like a bright star, Lincoln is often
considered aloof or solitary, but during the darkest time of our
nation (the “night” of the Civil War) Lincoln provided a
steadfast light to his people. Obviously, Whitman intends to suggest
by this imagery that the great star is Lincoln him self. This theory
could be further supported by pointing out Whitman refers to him as a
“western fallen star” (7) and Lincoln was from Illinois,
a state considered western during the 1860s. In section eight,
Whitman actually addresses the star, Lincoln, and says “no I
know what you must have meant…/As I saw you had something to
tell as you bent to be night after night” (56,58) Although one
would have to study more into the historical context and the
biography of Whitman to accurately make an assumption, this statement
could be referring to the fact that Whitman watched the star Venus
(the actual “Western star”) sink low about the time of
Lincolns death, but since news traveled slow without modern media,
Whitman might have not heard of the death for a period of time, thus
explaining why he would, after the fact, say to the star that he
understood what it had been trying to tell him.
The bird is first mentioned in lines 18-25: “In the swamp in
secluded recesses,/ a shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.”
Whitman describes the bird as a solitary thrush, a hermit, singing
alone. The song, Whitman writes is the “Song of the bleeding
throat” and that that song is “Death’s outlet song
of life.” (23 & 24) The bird is not mentioned again until
the tenth section of the poem where, in line 71 Whitman alludes to it
by referring to his own morning as “warbling”. In section
thirteen Whitman returns to the symbol of the bird, addressing it
directly and urging it to sing out its “human song” and
to “pour out [its] chant” with “uttermost woe”.
(99-107) Later, in lines 126-128, Whitman refers to the shy bird
receiving him, and singing for Whitman a song about Lincoln (“him
I love”). Finally, in lines 135 through 162, We hear the bird’s
own words in a song of mourning. Although the song is sad, Whitman
carefully intertwines phrases like “thy bliss O death”
and with joy to thee O death” to illustrate that the bird knows
death is not all bad. In the final section of the poem, second stanza
of section 16, Whitman carefully melds the birds warbling song with
his own and that of the other symbols. From these quotes, it may be
reasonable to advance the assertion that the bird in this poem
represents a transcendental view of a holistic view of death and what
might happen after death.
Each of these symbols, lilac, star, and bird meld together carefully
to form Whitman’s three-part meaning of When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard bloomed: That although the star, Lincoln, has disappeared,
unto the death sang of by the bird and Whitman with it, lilacs and
the renewal of lilacs each spring should continue to remind us of
Lincoln and the thousands of others who died.
The Poems “When Lilacs last in the dooryard Bloom’d”
and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” both by Walt
Whitman, share a common theme of death. Despite this common subject,
however, there are stark contrasts between the two poems. Perhaps the
most appropriate way to dissect and compare these poems is to look at
the through the lens of poetic devices: Diction, Imagery, and
Structure.
The structure of each of these poems plays a major part in
determining how they communicate the theme of death. Lilacs
has a rather uniformly structured layout on the page, while Whitman
penned Cradle with a much looser structure. The broken stanzas
and abrupt movement from idea to idea in Lilacs might
represent the movement of the train that carried Lincoln to his
grave. The train moved slowly from depot to depot until it reached
its conclusion- much like the way Lilacs moves from image to
image until Whitman reaches his conclusion. As the poem progresses,
the average length of a stanza moves from six to eight lines to
twenty and up. This could represent a slowing down of the train as it
approached Lincoln’s home, mourning growing heavier, or could
even represent how when the train left Washington, town were close
together and as it moved west the towns, and thus the gatherings of
mourners, were farther and father apart. Cradle, on the other hand,
has a much looser structure that we can suppose must also have
something to do with how Whitman wants his poem to be read and
understood. Cradle, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated to
suggest reasons for its structure. This poem moves from very long
stanzas to short stanzas and back very quickly. This could be
explained as an attempt to separate themes and speakers, or as an
attempt to illustrated the “waking” of the speaker
contrasted with the deep mourning of the lone seagull. In both poems,
structure plays an important part in helping the reader understand
the theme of death and how Whitman is portraying it.
Another major factor affecting the communication of Whitman’s
ideas on death is the diction and tone of each poem. In Cradle, death
is personal, grieving is acutely painful, and death is presented as
an inevitable force oppressing the speaker and the reader. (172-173)
However, in Lilacs, Whitman presents death as impersonal, like a star
falling or being hidden by black murk (6,9). Grief, in Lilacs, is not
like the acute stabbing of Cradle, but more of a dull ache. The kind
of dull ache that would be summoned by images of “dirges
through the night,” (40) “a thousand voices strong and
solemn,” (40) and “dim-lit churches and shuddering
organs.” (42) Finally, instead of death being an oppressive and
inevitable force, as it is in Cradle, in Lilacs the bird sings about
death as “bliss” (150) and does so with “joy to
thee O death.”(162) The words Whitman uses acutely affect the
tone of the work and thus, what the poem communicates to the reader
regarding death.
On a superficial level, the images in “When Lilacs last in the
dooryard Bloom’d” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly
Rocking” might seem very similar, particularly the symbol of
the bird. The bird in lilacs is a grey brown (99) thrush (20) who is
not represented as explicitly mourning for Lincoln, but is singing a
song of death in general- “when thou must indeed come, come
unfalteringly.” (146) Additionally, the bird not only sings of
death, but for death. A welcoming song as suggested by the
lines “Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, / Have
none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?” (143-144) In
Cradle, on the other hand, the bird is a seagull or some similar
marine bird that is grieving explicitly for his lost love. The quote
“Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! / But my mate no more, no
more with me! / We two together no more” (127-129) does not
allow for confusion, this bird represents the acute grief of lovers.
While the bird symbols in Lilacs and Cradle may seem very similar,
the bird in Lilacs is a symbol of a transcendentalist view of death
in the scheme of nature, and the bird in Cradle is a symbol of a much
different view of death—the personal, acute pain of a lover
left to mourn.
By examining the poetic devices and how Whitman uses them to heighten
the sense of death and different facets of grief it becomes obvious
that while both poems intimately explore death, grief, and morbidity,
When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom’d presents a more
generalized, transcendental, mournful representation of grief, the
poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly rocking confronts the reader with
the stark pain and reality of death.
