Walt Whitmans Out of the Cradle

THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS WALT'S CRADLE

W. D. SNODGRASS

WALT Whitman's most beautiful, most perfectly formedpoem, "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," presents

us with an essential question about his ever-perplexing life andcareer: why should Whitman, already famous, indeed notorious,for casting off the formal patterns that so long had shaped themusic of English poetry—^why should he now devise his own newpatterns of rhythmic form? In his earliest poems Whitman hadadopted the traditional forms that specify the number and positionof strong and weak syllables per line and that also often employrhyme. As it either fulfills or thwarts our expectations, this patternof strong versus weak syllables (also usually implying long versusshort) shapes an underlying rhythm, the basic current of musicthen thought essential to lift poems to a higher aesthetic and/ormoral level. Sidney Lanier and others correctly identified this asa triple rhythm (3/8 or 3/4), though Lanier himself imposed, orat least implied, uniform time values more appropriate to actualmusic than to language in which such matters are always ñexibleand individual.

Whitman touched off his revolt against these conformities inthe poem now known as "Song of Myself—a poem declaringitself to be a new Bible or guidebook for the beliefs and valuesof the loving all-inclusive society he imagined America mightbecome. These beliefs provoke much of the dazzling imagery andsymbolism that electrify this amazing poem. The self it celebratesmust explore and expand, passing outward to identify with allexistence—an inclusiveness displayed in the poem's language,form, and subject matter, and shown in verse styles ranging fromfiat arrhythmic prose all the way to those traditional forms he wassupposedly overthrowing. This inclusiveness overrode his deep-est doubts and fears: that he was alone, cut off from the lives ofothers—from the mother, from the lover, from his society's inten-tions and expectations.

As most critics note, however, with age and experience Whit-man's private sensualities, desires, and joys lost much of their sur-

© 2008 by W. D. Snodgrass

w. D. SNODGRASS 399

prise and shock, offering fewer and less startling transformationsof language. Meantime the world around him had also changed,growing ominously farther from his ideals and hopes—rushinginto Civil War with its hatreds, greeds, and prejudices multiplying,its homophobia spreading. Even worse his private journals revealthat the "manly love of comrades" he had so strongly championedhad proven, at times, more of a torment than a solution.

Whitman's later masterpiece, "Out of the Cradle EndlesslyRocking," deals directly with his fears of isolation and abandon-ment that his beliefs had veiled and reveals a self emptied of mean-ing by the loss of love. Death, earlier the great dilemma—bothfor his doctrines and for the structure of "Song of Myself—nowbecomes the one solution that can rejoin him to the great Mother,the Sea. During years of revision and experiment, both poetic andpersonal (he had once considered becoming an itinerant lecturerand preacher), much ofthe transformative power of his beliefs hadbeen replaced by an interest in the transcendent power of music.His style was less influenced by homiletic writers such as MartinTupper in favor ofthe more musical efforts of such poets as Tenny-son. Unfortunately this idiom allowed him to relapse at times intoold-fashioned "poetical" language, yet his deepening discoveryof internal and personal rhythms finally led him to musics thatcharged his poems with emotional enrichments unavailable toothers or to himself while he depended on traditional verse formsor on conscious visionary structures of belief.

During the mid and the late nineteenth century, many Eng-lish poets, influenced by folk songs and ballads, had turned fromthe strict syllable count of classical prosody toward stress versein which only accented syllables are counted. These stresses, ofcourse, fall more or less equally in time as the main rhythmicaccents; lighter syllables fit in as they may. Though this forgoesthe subtler syncopations and vitally flexible rhythmic complica-tions many poets had developed in the classical prosody, it doesoffer simple and more obvious rhythms. Many such folk songsand poems have either derived from, or developed into, nurserysongs and poems:

Three blind mice, three blind mice.See how they run, see how they run.

400 THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS WALT'S CRADLE

They all ran after the farmer's wifeWho cut off their heads with a carving knife.Did ever you see such a sight in your lifeAs three blind mice?

The first two half-lines have three heavy monosyllables apiece,then a pause to match a rest in the melody; in the second line, eachhalf-line has an additional light syllable. Lines 3, 4, and 5 growto four stresses, matching the melody's accents, with several lightsyllables scattered between. The last Une repeats the first withone extra light syllable. Many children's rhymes—"Ding, dong,bell; / Pussy's in the well," "Pease Porridge Hot," and "Hot CrossBuns"—take such a form. It's a bit more surprising to hear Tenny-son begin a lyric of grief with three identical single syUables:

Break, break, break.On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue might utterThe thoughts that arise in me . . .

O, well for the fisherman's boyThat he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor ladThat he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go onTo their haven under the hifl;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd handAnd the sound of voice that is stiU.

Break, break, break.At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is deadWill never come back to me.

—"Break, Break, Break"

This poem, like "Out ofthe Cradle," an oceanside lament for a lostlove, was deeply admired by Whitman and at times was echoed

w. D. SNODGRASS 401

in his own work. In 1861 he produced a direct imitation in one ofhis earliest Civil War poems, "Beat! Beat! Drums!" There, how-ever, the three-beat motif is repeated, producing half-lines (as inthe nursery rhyme above), a device Whitman had already tried in"Song of the Broad Axe." To visualize this technique, I will give,first, the poem's opening stanza as usually printed, then a versionshowing stressed syllables and the second half-lines dropped ontoseparate Unes.

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Through the windows—through doors—burst like a

ruthless forceInto the solemn church, and scatter the congregation.Into the school where the scholar is studying;Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must

he have now with his bride;Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or

gathering his grain;So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you

bugles blow.

BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!

Beat! beat! drums!

blow! bug-les! blow!

Through the wind-ows—through doors—

burst like a ruth-less force

In-to the sol-emn church,

and scat-ter the con-gre-ga-tion.

Into the school where the schol-ar is stud-y-ing

Leave not the bride-groom qui-et—

no hap-pi-ness must he have now

with his bride.

Nor the peace-ful farm-er an-y peace


plough-ing his field or gath-er-ing

his grain,

So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—

so shrill you bug-les blow.

The motif, announced in the first half-line, slightly varied in thesecond, is then continued in half-lines of stressed verse with lightsyllables scattered at will. Line 4 grows to four full stress-units(as happened in both "Three Blind Mice" and "Break, Break,Break") but has no second half. Thereafter half-lines will alternatebetween three and four stresses: 3 plus 4, again 3 plus 4, but finallyending 4 plus 3—reñecting not only the added fourth stress inthe last stanzas of Tennyson's lyric but also Whitman's tendencyto expand a poem toward its climax, then ebb back at the end—atendency seen, for instance, in "Tears," also closely related toTennyson's work.

Later in his Civil War book, Drum-Taps, Whitman takes a dar-ing step further, building lines not from predefined small unitssuch as syllabic-stress feet or the measures of stress verse thatdisregard word-formation or other sense-units. The basic build-ing block here is a compact, significant grouping of words likethose we often form in normal speech. This may consist of a shortsentence or of a complete or partial phrase which, having someelement of completed meaning, is usually preceded and followedby a slight pause. Such groupings have been described as "pack-ets of thought" that the brain assembles and delivers as units ofspeech—neurologists refer to this process as "chunking."

The poetic line, then, will have either two or three such chunksor segments, each rhythmically related to the first segment, theirtheme or motif. The effect is much like the theme-with-variationsheard in music. This first appears in Whitman's later work Drum-Taps, in a splendid short poem, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford," notablefor its brilliant camera work. Starting from a long-distance land-scape shot, it zooms in for individual close-ups, then backs offagain for a symbolic representation of the original serpentineimage, identifying the cavalry as friendly and so dramatically rede-

w. D. SNODGRASS 403

fining the readers emotional response. Again I will present thisfirst as usually printed, then make visual the rhythmical effect, in"Cavalry Crossing a Ford":

A line in long array where they wind betwixt greenislands.

They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in thesun—hark to the musical clank.

Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loi-tering stop to drink.

Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each persona picture, the negligent rest on the saddles.

Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are justentering the ford—^while

Scarlet and blue and snowy white.The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

/ / /

A line in long ar-ray

where they wind be-twixt

green is-lands,/ / /

They take a serp-en-tine course,

their arms flash in the sun—

hark to the mus-i-cal clank,

Be-hold the sil-ver-y riv-er,

m it the splash-mg hors-es

loit-er-ing stop to drink.

Be-hold the brown-faced men,

each group, each per-son a pic-ture,

the neg-li-gent rest on the sad-dies,/ / / /

Some e-merge on the op-pos-ite bank,oth-ers are just ent-er-ing the ford—

while.


Scar-let and blue and snow-y white,

The guid-on flags flut-ter gay-ly in the wind.

The next poem in Drum-Taps, "Bivouac on a Mountain Side,"equally brilliant, is also based on this three-beat rhythm that againexpands quickly to an occasional four. I present here only my visu-alized schema of the poem's rhythmic structure.

I see be-fore me now,

a trav-el-ing arm-y halt-ing.

Be-low a fer-tile val-ley spread,

with barns and the or-chards of sum-mer,

Be-hind, the ter-raced sides of a moun-tain,

ab-rupt, in plac-es ris-ing high,

Brok-en, with rocks, with cling-ing ce-dars,

with tall shapes ding-ily seen.

The num-er-ous camp-fires

scat-ter d near and tar,/ / /

some away up on the moun-tain.

The shad-ow-y forms of men and horses,

loom-ing, large-sized, flick-er-ing.

And o-ver all the sky—the sky!

far, far out of reach,

stud-ded, break-ing out,

the e-tem-ai stars.Whitmans most vital use of such variations, however, lies in

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking." This cradle is, of course,the sea, which had once rocked all life and is introduced anddeveloped here in a thematic rhythm, an auditory symbol evok-

w. D. SNODGRASS 405

ing the ocean s movement. The first line states this motif twice inshort two-beat phrases which by the third line grow to three beats,appearing throughout the first seven lines in either two- or three-beat phrases. Then, after twelve lines of free verse which hint onlyfaintly at that theme, the ocean s rhythm reappears as the narratorrecalls himself as a boy throwing himself on the shore. I will showthese thematic variants in italics; if a line contains more than onevariant, I will separate them with a space:

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical

shuttle,Out of the Ninth-month midnight.Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where

the chfld leaving his bed wandered alone, bare-headed, barefoot.

Down from the shower'd halo.Up from, the mystic play of shadows twining and twist-

ing as if they were alive.Out from the patches of briers and blackberries.From the memories of the bird that chanted to me.From your memories sad brother, from the fitful ris-

ings and fallings I heard.From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swol-

len as if with tears.From those beginning notes of yearning and love

there in the mist.From the thousand responses of my heart never to

cease.From the myriad thence-arous'd words.From the word stronger and more delicious than any.From such as now they start the scene revisiting.As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing.Borne hither, ere aU eludes me, hurriedly,A man, yet by these tears a little boy again.Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the

waves,I, chanter of pains and joys, uniterofhere

and hereafter.


Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leasingbeyond them,

A reminiscence sing.

Many critics have noted Whitmans passionate love of Italianopera, which was then becoming popular in New York. RobertFaner aptly calls this poem "a miniature opera," with the firstsection as its overture that introduces the scene and actors, weav-ing together the themes—musical, linguistic, and ideational—butwithout directly involving us in the narrative. This is accomplishedby means of an eccentric syntax: this section consists of a singlesentence whose subject, I, appears only in the 21st of its 23 lines,while the main verb, sing, is suppressed until the very last word.Since normal sentence structure with its sense of subordinationsand of directed attention is withheld, we are suspended, apartfrom the main action and from the significance of this wealth ofdetails.

This overture completed, we begin the narrative action, "OncePaumonok," with its flashback to the beach where the boy hadwatched the paired mockingbirds. Dropping the rhythmic motifsnoted in the first section, this narration is handled in Whitman'snormal, prosey free verse—not unlike operatic recitatives thatpresent the action which is most frequently responded to andinterpreted in the arias. Only when he recalls and "translates" theactual mockingbird's song—first an aria of joy at being with hismate, then of desolation at her loss—does Whitman return to aneven more pronounced music, a second and quite different formof theme-with-variations.

Here the model is Tennyson's elegy with its three monosyl-lables, "Break, break, break": this aria's first stanza begins similarly,followed in its second and third lines by three measures each ofstress verse.

Shine! shine! shine!Pour down your warmth, great sun!While we bask, we two together.

This establishes a reader's anticipation of lines of three segments—whether of three syllables, three stress measures, or other variants.

w. D. SNODGRASS 407

Furthermore separate stanzas within the major sections begin(and more often end) with three stress measures, strengtheningthe impression of the tripartite line as the basis from which vari-ants devolve. Major sections of the song will often begin withthree-syllable lines such as "Soothe, soothe, soothe," althoughelsewhere lines and stanzas may vary in length—five-beat lines(and even iambic pentameter) not being uncommon:

Blow! blow! blow!Blow up sea-winds along Paumonoks shore;

I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.

Especially as the songs climax nears, segments within a line mayvary in length, sometimes beyond single syllables or stress mea-sures, becoming the "chunks" or "packets of thought and speech"noted in the Drum-Taps poems: "So faint, I must be still, be stillto listen." Fairly often, lines may have six stresses, breaking intotwo half-lines of three measures each: "Somewhere listening tocatch you must be the one I want."

At all points, of course, the poem is free to break from thisrhythmic basis, just as the introductory overture does in its mid-section. Occasionally lines may have as few as four or as many astwenty-three syllables, and such lines may, in a burst of excitementor passion, forgo all sense of rhythmical movement.

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among thebreakers?

What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

The basic movement, though, will soon reappear—in this case, inthe very next Une.

Loud! loud! loud!Loud I call to you, my love

This freedom to assert, then abandon, but then regain a basicmotif is much like the mockingbird's habit of asserting a basic callor melody that can then be extended, elaborated, or even inter-rupted by other musical (and nonmusical) sounds, only to return

408 THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS W A L T ' S CRADLE

again and again to that initial theme. Here, moreover, Whitman isfollowing the operatic arias tendency to link phrases or to inter-rupt the flow of song with extensions or repetition of phrases toemphasize the text or to display improvisations or coloratura.Through these devices, the birds aria rises to an overwhelmingclimax of grief and loss:

O throat! O throbbing heart!And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.

O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!In the air, in the woods, over fields.Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!But my mate no more, no more with me!

Many critics think this climax too self-displaying a wail ofdespair. I might agree—if this were the poem s climax. It seemsinstead to represent the sort of emotional baggage that must beworked through and discharged before the poem can reach thetrue climax, nearly a page later and in the utterly different voiceof the great Mother, the Sea, whispering her answer to the poet'sgrief. She echoes the five earlier cries, "Loved! loved! loved! loved!loved!" offering instead five opposing syllables: "Death, death,death, death, death." In place of any reunion with the lost beloved,she promises rejoinder with the maternal force from which thespeaker was separated at birth. And, in one of the most magicalmoments to be found in any poem, this voice echoes not only therepeated syllable, loved, with the simultaneously despairing andcomforting syllable, death, but also recalls that oceanic rhythmwe heard in the poems opening stanza and overture. The returnof this rhythm is not only underscored by internal rhymes andheavy alHterations but emphasized, paradoxically, by the poem'sonly parenthesis, enclosing a rhythm that we, like the narrator, hadnearly forgotten. I will again show the stressed syllables.

My own songs a-waked from that hour.

And with them the key, the word up from the waves.

w. D. SNODGRASS 409

The word of the sweet-est song and all songs

That strong and de-lic-ious word which, creep-ing

to my feet,

(Or like some old crone rock-ing the crad-le,

swathed in sweet gar-ments, bend-mg a-side,)1 , 1 . 1 /

The sea whis-pered me.

To experience fully how these motifs bind and shape the wholework into one musical body, I would strongly urge the readerthat the poem should be—as Whitman clearly intended—spokenaloud.

Whitman's process in composing this poem is of considerablerelevance here. I suspect that most of us, if asked to compose atheme with variations, would probably borrow or even invent atheme, then set about fiddUng up some variations on it. Whitmandid just the opposite. His many published revisions demonstratethat, more or less unintentionally, he had wandered into certainlines and phrases whose repeated or variant rhythms suggestedan underlying pattern, then had ransacked those phrases to findthe dormant motif—the poem's present title and first line. Thepoem's original first line, in 1860, was "Out of the rock'd cradle,"a phrase with httle musical impulse and no relation to the poem'slater movement. That Une remained in the 1867 edition, thoughthe Unes following have several suggestions of the still unstated,still unrecognized theme. That motif first appears in a handwrittenbut rejected variant for that same edition; it came into print onlyin 1871, eleven years after the first edition. The resurgence ofthatseminal rhythm in the poem's coda came only ten years later, in1881, the next-to-last edition.

It took Whitman some twenty-one years to develop and achievethis technique. I am reminded of Robert Frost's dictum, "It is nopoem at all, and but a fake poem, if the best of it was thought offirst and saved for the last." Or Auden's, "How do I know what Ithink until I see what I say?" Both, however, were talking aboutthe poem's conscious meaning, its dictionary sense. Whitman hasshown that the same may be true of the poem's rhythmic and


musical embodiment. We all claim that creative work should bea process of self-discovery; how few artists have so fully accom-plished that!

If this analysis demonstrates, at least in part, how Whitmandiscovered his own rhythmic theme-and-variations prosody, it mayalso raise a more resistant question: why does this technique neverprominently reappear in his later work, not even in such gdef-ridden poems as "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" or"As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life"? "Out of the Cradle EndlesslyRocking" obviously delves into areas of personal loss and rejectionof this life's necessary emotional damage, in place of the appetitefor experience and the positive, confident tone so typical of mostof his work. Yet no biographer has identified with certainty anyevent that would account for a desolation so profound. I can onlysuggest that the poem commemorates a sense of loss so encom-passing as never to leave Whitman completely, yet which, even ifsurmounted, could not be permitted to drive him again to exploreso extensively his own musical and emotional depths.

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Walt Whitmans Out of the Cradle