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Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
150 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1859
About the author
Walt Whitman
1,654 books5,498 followersWalter Whitman Jr. was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 23, 2020
I had to read it twice because the first time it lost me halfway. I had blinked severely times because I did not know if I had just drowsed off in the middle of the poem and dreamt the rest of it or if I had really read it.
Whitman does some crafty magic with his language. It is the kind of spell for which one would have to go to a Hogwarts.
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Whitman does some crafty magic with his language. It is the kind of spell for which one would have to go to a Hogwarts.
Instagram\\my Blog\\
April 26, 2020
“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” by Walt Whitman
Beautifully sad lament of a mocking-bird’s lost soul-mate ****
....
e.g.
He call'd on his mate,
He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.
Yes my brother I know,
The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note,
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and
sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen'd long and long.
……
Beautifully sad lament of a mocking-bird’s lost soul-mate ****
....
e.g.
He call'd on his mate,
He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.
Yes my brother I know,
The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note,
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and
sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen'd long and long.
……
March 28, 2018
It is a bit of a sad and melancholy poem about a bird who has lost his mate, and the sadness that surrounds the loss.
November 20, 2022
This poem, first published in 1860 as “A Word Out of the Sea” and in roughly final form by 1871 — is Whitman’s most multifaceted and successfully-integrated poem.
Several efficient new techniques are evident. One is the use of a triad of images (boy, bird, and sea) through which the poet develops his theme by means of a dramatic colloquy. The influence of music is seen in the device, inspired by the model of the opera, of the arias or bird songs, of accomplishment and annoyance, which provide interludes of lyric expression of the feelings and emotions aroused by the events presented and analysed in the narrative and dramatic framework of the poem.
The sea (as earth- mother) symbolises Life or creation; the mocking-bird symbolises the Soul of the poet: it is a projection of the poet’s inner self; and the boy symbolises inquisitiveness.
Some critics have taken the poem to be a dirge mourning the death of someone dear to the poet. But death is not its essential theme. Its basic premise is the affiliation between suffering and art. It shows how the boy matures into a poet through his experience of love and death.
This poem reveals the aloofness of the poet and a distancing of subject through the device of the three related central figures who, as dramatic characters, contribute to the development of the theme. The poem’s dramatic excellence is heightened by the lyric interludes.
The figures of the boy, the bird and the sea (as earth mother) are introduced, the importance of their roles is revealed, and the ending of the poem resolves the symposium as the bird’s cries of displeased love and the message of death whispered by the sea are fused with the poet’s own songs awakened from that hour.
Art is a sublimation of aggravation, and death is a release from the anxiety and strains caused by such frustrations. The poem is a nostalgia song, and its rationale is to show how one matures into a poet or artist through experiencing disappointment and bereavement.
Several efficient new techniques are evident. One is the use of a triad of images (boy, bird, and sea) through which the poet develops his theme by means of a dramatic colloquy. The influence of music is seen in the device, inspired by the model of the opera, of the arias or bird songs, of accomplishment and annoyance, which provide interludes of lyric expression of the feelings and emotions aroused by the events presented and analysed in the narrative and dramatic framework of the poem.
The sea (as earth- mother) symbolises Life or creation; the mocking-bird symbolises the Soul of the poet: it is a projection of the poet’s inner self; and the boy symbolises inquisitiveness.
Some critics have taken the poem to be a dirge mourning the death of someone dear to the poet. But death is not its essential theme. Its basic premise is the affiliation between suffering and art. It shows how the boy matures into a poet through his experience of love and death.
This poem reveals the aloofness of the poet and a distancing of subject through the device of the three related central figures who, as dramatic characters, contribute to the development of the theme. The poem’s dramatic excellence is heightened by the lyric interludes.
The figures of the boy, the bird and the sea (as earth mother) are introduced, the importance of their roles is revealed, and the ending of the poem resolves the symposium as the bird’s cries of displeased love and the message of death whispered by the sea are fused with the poet’s own songs awakened from that hour.
Art is a sublimation of aggravation, and death is a release from the anxiety and strains caused by such frustrations. The poem is a nostalgia song, and its rationale is to show how one matures into a poet or artist through experiencing disappointment and bereavement.
August 4, 2025
“Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.”
This poem hit me like a wave I didn’t see coming. What starts as a boy watching a pair of birds by the sea turns into something haunting, melodic, and deeply spiritual. A kind of origin story for why Whitman became a poet in the first place.
The verses spoken by the bird are italicized, giving them a distinctive voice that feels raw and alive. The repetition (words like “shine! shine! shine!”) captures the natural rhythm of birdsong in a way that’s honestly brilliant. You can hear the bird mourning its lost mate over and over, and it doesn’t just sing, you feel it grieving.
But what stunned me most was the turn toward the end. After all that aching, all that searching, the boy, now emotionally cracked open, asks the sea for the word that explains everything. And the sea answers: “death.” It felt like a slap. Like something ancient and inescapable finally speaking the truth no one wants to say out loud.
At first, it startled me. Up until that point, I thought this was a poem about love and longing. But then it hit me: death isn’t just the end here: it’s the very reason why Whitman begins to write. Because according to Whitman death is what gives love urgency. It’s what turns grief into art, and mourning into music. The poem says, you feel deeply because nothing lasts forever and that’s exactly why you must give it voice.
It’s the sound of the bird. The heart of the boy. And the endless echo of the sea. All coming together to awaken a soul to its calling.
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.”
This poem hit me like a wave I didn’t see coming. What starts as a boy watching a pair of birds by the sea turns into something haunting, melodic, and deeply spiritual. A kind of origin story for why Whitman became a poet in the first place.
The verses spoken by the bird are italicized, giving them a distinctive voice that feels raw and alive. The repetition (words like “shine! shine! shine!”) captures the natural rhythm of birdsong in a way that’s honestly brilliant. You can hear the bird mourning its lost mate over and over, and it doesn’t just sing, you feel it grieving.
But what stunned me most was the turn toward the end. After all that aching, all that searching, the boy, now emotionally cracked open, asks the sea for the word that explains everything. And the sea answers: “death.” It felt like a slap. Like something ancient and inescapable finally speaking the truth no one wants to say out loud.
At first, it startled me. Up until that point, I thought this was a poem about love and longing. But then it hit me: death isn’t just the end here: it’s the very reason why Whitman begins to write. Because according to Whitman death is what gives love urgency. It’s what turns grief into art, and mourning into music. The poem says, you feel deeply because nothing lasts forever and that’s exactly why you must give it voice.
It’s the sound of the bird. The heart of the boy. And the endless echo of the sea. All coming together to awaken a soul to its calling.
June 19, 2024
kind of obsessed. can make a lot of connections to realistic art movement which i might do in the assignment that i need to start. also i bring this up a lot but it's very j core. felt very sad for bird guy :((
December 7, 2022
school slay
May 6, 2023
Read for ENG 445: American Lit 1820-1870
December 30, 2024
Favourite Whitman poem
April 12, 2012
I really don't know how to rate this poem.
It sounds great when read aloud, but I did not get all of the meanings that I had to look up at several different sites to see what it was really talking about. Guess I am just not really into deciphering poetry.
It sounds great when read aloud, but I did not get all of the meanings that I had to look up at several different sites to see what it was really talking about. Guess I am just not really into deciphering poetry.
December 28, 2009
i weep every time i read this one... feelings of compassion, love and loss.. betrayal and comfort all in one. i am thrilled to be rediscovering whitman this week..
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews