Out of the rocked cradle,
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, wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the showered halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting; as if they were
alive,
Out from the patches of briars and blackberries,
From the memories of the birds that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother--from the fitful risings and fallings I
heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent
mist,
From the thousand
responses
of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-aroused 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 all 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, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond
them,
A reminiscence sing.
Whitman
_
1.
There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he looked upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the
day, or for many years, or tretching cycles of years.
2.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories,[1] and white and red clover,
and the song of the phoebe-bird,[2]
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's
foal, and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--and the
beautiful, curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful fiat heads--all became part of
him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part or him;
3.
Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent
roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and
wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern,
whence he had lately risen,
And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that passed, and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.
His own parents;
He that had fathered him, and she that had conceived him in her womb, and
birthed him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day--they became part of him.
The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
The mother with mild words--clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odour
falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture--the yearning
and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsaid--the sense of what is real--the thought
if after all it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--the curious whether
and how--
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets--if they are not flashes and
specks, what are they?
The streets themselves, and the facades of houses, and goods in the
windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-planked wharves--the huge crossing at the
ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset--the river between;
Shadows, aureola and mist, light falling on roofs and gables of white or
brown, three miles off;
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide--the little boat
slack-towed astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves quick-broken crests slapping,
The strata of coloured clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary
by itself-the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and
shore mud;--
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes,
and will always go forth every day.
[Footnote 1: The name of "morning-glory" is given to the bindweed, or a
sort of bindweed, in America. I am not certain whether this expressive name
is used in England also.]
[Footnote 2: A dun-coloured little bird with a cheerful note, sounding like
the word Phoebe.]
_A WORD OUT OF THE SEA._
1.
Out of the rocked cradle,
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, wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the showered halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting; as if they were
alive,
Out from the patches of briars and blackberries,
From the memories of the birds that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother--from the fitful risings and fallings I
heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent
mist,
From the thousand
responses
of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-aroused 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 all 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, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond
them,
A reminiscence sing.
2.
Once, Paumanok,
When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass
was growing,
Up this sea-shore, in some briars,
Two 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, crouched on her nest, silent,
with bright eyes;
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never
disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.
3.
_Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
While we bask--we two together.
Two together!
Winds blow South, or winds blow North,
Day come white or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
If we two but keep together_.
4.
Till of a sudden,
Maybe killed, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest,
Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appeared again.
And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,
And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from briar to briar by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.
