{"id":1999,"date":"2010-07-25T11:39:53","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T11:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=1999"},"modified":"2022-01-18T16:08:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T16:08:50","slug":"poem-out-of-the-cradle-endlessly-rocking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/poem-out-of-the-cradle-endlessly-rocking\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Walt Whitman’s superb Sea-Drift<\/em>, written in 1859, about alone-ness and becoming a poet.<\/p>\n

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
\n<\/em>
\nOut of the cradle endlessly rocking,
\nOut of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
\nOut of the Ninth-month midnight,
\nOver the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child
\nleaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
\nDown from the shower’d halo,
\nUp from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they
\nwere alive,
\nOut from the patches of briers and blackberries,
\nFrom the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
\nFrom your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
\nFrom under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
\nFrom those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
\nFrom the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
\nFrom the myriad thence-arous’d words,
\nFrom the word stronger and more delicious than any,
\nFrom such as now they start the scene revisiting,
\nAs a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
\nBorne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
\nA man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
\nThrowing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
\nI, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
\nTaking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
\nA reminiscence sing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once Paumanok,
\nWhen the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,
\nUp this seashore in some briers,
\nTwo feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,
\nAnd their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
\nAnd every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
\nAnd every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
\nAnd every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing
\nthem,
\nCautiously peering, absorbing, translating.<\/span>
\nShine! shine! shine!
\nPour down your warmth, great sun.’
\nWhile we bask, we two together.<\/span><\/em>
\nTwo together!
\nWinds blow south, or winds blow north,
\nDay come white, or night come black,
\nHome, or rivers and mountains from home,
\nSinging all time, minding no time,
\nWhile we two keep together.<\/span><\/em>
\nTill of a sudden,
\nMay-be kill’d, unknown to her mate,
\nOne forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,
\nNor return’d that afternoon, nor the next,
\nNor ever appear’d again.<\/span>
\nAnd thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
\nAnd at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,
\nOver the hoarse surging of the sea,
\nOr flitting from brier to brier by day,
\nI saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,
\nThe solitary guest from Alabama.<\/span>
\nBlow! blow! blow!
\nBlow up sea-winds along Paumanok’s shore;
\nI wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.<\/span><\/em>
\n. . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Previous poems are here<\/a>.
\nReference:<\/em>
\nWalt Whitman [1982]:  Complete Poetry and Collected Prose<\/em>.  Selected by Justin Kaplan. New York, NY, USA:  The Library of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Walt Whitman’s superb Sea-Drift, written in 1859, about alone-ness and becoming a poet. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 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 child leaving his bed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","p1","y2010","m07","d25","h11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10524,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/10524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}