THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS WALT'S CRADLE W. D.

SNODGRASS

ALT Whitman's most beautiful, most perfectly formed poem, "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," presents us with an essential question about his ever-perplexing life and career: why should Whitman, already famous, indeed notorious, for casting off the formal patterns that so long had shaped the music of English poetry^why should he now devise his own new patterns of rhythmic form? In his earliest poems Whitman had adopted the traditional forms that specify the number and position of strong and weak syllables per line and that also often employ rhyme. As it either fulfills or thwarts our expectations, this pattern of strong versus weak syllables (also usually implying long versus short) shapes an underlying rhythm, the basic current of music then thought essential to lift poems to a higher aesthetic and/or moral level. Sidney Lanier and others correctly identified this as a triple rhythm (3/8 or 3/4), though Lanier himself imposed, or at least implied, uniform time values more appropriate to actual music than to language in which such matters are always exible and individual. Whitman touched off his revolt against these conformities in the poem now known as "Song of Myselfa poem declaring itself to be a new Bible or guidebook for the beliefs and values of the loving all-inclusive society he imagined America might become. These beliefs provoke much of the dazzling imagery and symbolism that electrify this amazing poem. The self it celebrates must explore and expand, passing outward to identify with all existencean inclusiveness displayed in the poem's language, form, and subject matter, and shown in verse styles ranging from fiat arrhythmic prose all the way to those traditional forms he was supposedly overthrowing. This inclusiveness overrode his deepest doubts and fears: that he was alone, cut off from the lives of othersfrom the mother, from the lover, from his society's intentions and expectations. As most critics note, however, with age and experience Whitman'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 transformations of language. Meantime the world around him had also changed, growing ominously farther from his ideals and hopesrushing into Civil War with its hatreds, greeds, and prejudices multiplying, its homophobia spreading. Even worse his private journals reveal that the "manly love of comrades" he had so strongly championed had proven, at times, more of a torment than a solution. Whitman's later masterpiece, "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," deals directly with his fears of isolation and abandonment that his beliefs had veiled and reveals a self emptied of meaning by the loss of love. Death, earlier the great dilemmaboth for his doctrines and for the structure of "Song of Myselfnow becomes the one solution that can rejoin him to the great Mother, the Sea. During years of revision and experiment, both poetic and personal (he had once considered becoming an itinerant lecturer and preacher), much ofthe transformative power of his beliefs had been replaced by an interest in the transcendent power of music. His style was less influenced by homiletic writers such as Martin Tupper in favor ofthe more musical efforts of such poets as Tennyson. Unfortunately this idiom allowed him to relapse at times into old-fashioned "poetical" language, yet his deepening discovery of internal and personal rhythms finally led him to musics that charged his poems with emotional enrichments unavailable to others or to himself while he depended on traditional verse forms or on conscious visionary structures of belief. During the mid and the late nineteenth century, many English poets, influenced by folk songs and ballads, had turned from the strict syllable count of classical prosody toward stress verse in which only accented syllables are counted. These stresses, of course, fall more or less equally in time as the main rhythmic accents; lighter syllables fit in as they may. Though this forgoes the subtler syncopations and vitally flexible rhythmic complications many poets had developed in the classical prosody, it does offer simple and more obvious rhythms. Many such folk songs and poems have either derived from, or developed into, nursery songs 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 wife Who cut off their heads with a carving knife. Did ever you see such a sight in your life As 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, each half-line has an additional light syllable. Lines 3, 4, and 5 grow to four stresses, matching the melody's accents, with several light syllables scattered between. The last Une repeats the first with one extra light syllable. Many children's rhymes"Ding, dong, bell; / Pussy's in the well," "Pease Porridge Hot," and "Hot Cross Buns"take such a form. It's a bit more surprising to hear Tennyson 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 utter The thoughts that arise in me . . . O, well for the fisherman's boy That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hifl; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand And 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 dead Will never come back to me. "Break, Break, Break" This poem, like "Out ofthe Cradle," an oceanside lament for a lost love, 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 of his earliest Civil War poems, "Beat! Beat! Drums!" There, however, the three-beat motif is repeated, producing half-lines (as in the 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 version showing stressed syllables and the second half-lines dropped onto separate Unes. Beat! beat! drums!blow! bugles! blow! Through the windowsthrough doorsburst like a ruthless force Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation. Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quietno 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 drumsso shrill you bugles blow. BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! Beat! beat! drums! blow! bug-les! blow! Through the wind-owsthrough 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

402

THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS WALT'S CRADLE 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 the second, is then continued in half-lines of stressed verse with light syllables 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 alternate between three and four stresses: 3 plus 4, again 3 plus 4, but finally ending 4 plus 3reecting not only the added fourth stress in the last stanzas of Tennyson's lyric but also Whitman's tendency to expand a poem toward its climax, then ebb back at the enda tendency seen, for instance, in "Tears," also closely related to Tennyson's work. Later in his Civil War book, Drum-Taps, Whitman takes a daring step further, building lines not from predefined small units such as syllabic-stress feet or the measures of stress verse that disregard word-formation or other sense-units. The basic building block here is a compact, significant grouping of words like those we often form in normal speech. This may consist of a short sentence or of a complete or partial phrase which, having some element of completed meaning, is usually preceded and followed by a slight pause. Such groupings have been described as "packets of thought" that the brain assembles and delivers as units of speechneurologists refer to this process as "chunking." The poetic line, then, will have either two or three such chunks or segments, each rhythmically related to the first segment, their theme or motif. The effect is much like the theme-with-variations heard in music. This first appears in Whitman's later work DrumTaps, in a splendid short poem, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford," notable for its brilliant camera work. Starting from a long-distance landscape shot, it zooms in for individual close-ups, then backs off again for a symbolic representation of the original serpentine image, identifying the cavalry as friendly and so dramatically rede-

w. D. SNODGRASS

403

fining the readers emotional response. Again I will present this first as usually printed, then make visual the rhythmical effect, in "Cavalry Crossing a Ford": A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands. They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sunhark to the musical clank. Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink. Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles. Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford^while Scarlet and blue and snowy white. The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind. / / / 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. A line in long ar-ray

404

THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS

WALT'S

CRADLE

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 again expands quickly to an occasional four. I present here only my visualized 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 skythe 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 and developed 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 in short two-beat phrases which by the third line grow to three beats, appearing throughout the first seven lines in either two- or threebeat phrases. Then, after twelve lines of free verse which hint only faintly at that theme, the ocean s rhythm reappears as the narrator recalls himself as a boy throwing himself on the shore. I will show these thematic variants in italics; if a line contains more than one variant, 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, bareheaded, barefoot. Down from the shower'd halo. Up from, the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting 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 risings and fallings I heard. From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen 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.

406

THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS WALT'S CRADLE Taking all hints to use them, beyond them, A reminiscence sing. but swiftly leasing

Many critics have noted Whitmans passionate love of Italian opera, which was then becoming popular in New York. Robert Faner aptly calls this poem "a miniature opera," with the first section as its overture that introduces the scene and actors, weaving together the themesmusical, linguistic, and ideationalbut without directly involving us in the narrative. This is accomplished by means of an eccentric syntax: this section consists of a single sentence 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 subordinations and of directed attention is withheld, we are suspended, apart from the main action and from the significance of this wealth of details. This overture completed, we begin the narrative action, "Once Paumonok," with its flashback to the beach where the boy had watched the paired mockingbirds. Dropping the rhythmic motifs noted in the first section, this narration is handled in Whitman's normal, prosey free versenot unlike operatic recitatives that present the action which is most frequently responded to and interpreted in the arias. Only when he recalls and "translates" the actual mockingbird's songfirst an aria of joy at being with his mate, then of desolation at her lossdoes Whitman return to an even more pronounced music, a second and quite different form of theme-with-variations. Here the model is Tennyson's elegy with its three monosyllables, "Break, break, break": this aria's first stanza begins similarly, followed in its second and third lines by three measures each of stress 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, strengthening the impression of the tripartite line as the basis from which variants devolve. Major sections of the song will often begin with three-syllable lines such as "Soothe, soothe, soothe," although elsewhere lines and stanzas may vary in lengthfive-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 may vary in length, sometimes beyond single syllables or stress measures, becoming the "chunks" or "packets of thought and speech" noted in the Drum-Taps poems: "So faint, I must be still, be still to listen." Fairly often, lines may have six stresses, breaking into two half-lines of three measures each: "Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want." At all points, of course, the poem is free to break from this rhythmic basis, just as the introductory overture does in its midsection. Occasionally lines may have as few as four or as many as twenty-three syllables, and such lines may, in a burst of excitement or passion, forgo all sense of rhythmical movement. O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers? What is that little black thing I see there in the white? The basic movement, though, will soon reappearin this case, in the very next Une. Loud! loud! loud! Loud I call to you, my love This freedom to assert, then abandon, but then regain a basic motif is much like the mockingbird's habit of asserting a basic call or melody that can then be extended, elaborated, or even interrupted by other musical (and nonmusical) sounds, only to return

408

THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS

WALT'S

CRADLE

again and again to that initial theme. Here, moreover, Whitman is following the operatic arias tendency to link phrases or to interrupt the flow of song with extensions or repetition of phrases to emphasize the text or to display improvisations or coloratura. Through these devices, the birds aria rises to an overwhelming climax 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 of despair. I might agreeif this were the poem s climax. It seems instead to represent the sort of emotional baggage that must be worked through and discharged before the poem can reach the true climax, nearly a page later and in the utterly different voice of the great Mother, the Sea, whispering her answer to the poet's grief. 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 the speaker was separated at birth. And, in one of the most magical moments to be found in any poem, this voice echoes not only the repeated syllable, loved, with the simultaneously despairing and comforting syllable, death, but also recalls that oceanic rhythm we heard in the poems opening stanza and overture. The return of this rhythm is not only underscored by internal rhymes and heavy alHterations but emphasized, paradoxically, by the poem's only parenthesis, enclosing a rhythm that we, like the narrator, had nearly 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 That strong and de-lic-ious word to my feet, (Or like some old crone
1 , 1 .
1 /

and all songs which, creep-ing

rock-ing the crad-le, bend-mg a-side,)

swathed in sweet gar-ments, The sea whis-pered me.

To experience fully how these motifs bind and shape the whole work into one musical body, I would strongly urge the reader that the poem should beas Whitman clearly intendedspoken aloud. Whitman's process in composing this poem is of considerable relevance here. I suspect that most of us, if asked to compose a theme with variations, would probably borrow or even invent a theme, then set about fiddUng up some variations on it. Whitman did just the opposite. His many published revisions demonstrate that, more or less unintentionally, he had wandered into certain lines and phrases whose repeated or variant rhythms suggested an underlying pattern, then had ransacked those phrases to find the dormant motifthe poem's present title and first line. The poem'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's later movement. That Une remained in the 1867 edition, though the Unes following have several suggestions of the still unstated, still unrecognized theme. That motif first appears in a handwritten but rejected variant for that same edition; it came into print only in 1871, eleven years after the first edition. The resurgence ofthat seminal rhythm in the poem's coda came only ten years later, in 1881, the next-to-last edition. It took Whitman some twenty-one years to develop and achieve this technique. I am reminded of Robert Frost's dictum, "It is no poem at all, and but a fake poem, if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the last." Or Auden's, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" Both, however, were talking about the poem's conscious meaning, its dictionary sense. Whitman has shown that the same may be true of the poem's rhythmic and

410

THE RHYTHM THAT ROCKS WALT'S CRADLE

musical embodiment. We all claim that creative work should be a process of self-discovery; how few artists have so fully accomplished that! If this analysis demonstrates, at least in part, how Whitman discovered his own rhythmic theme-and-variations prosody, it may also raise a more resistant question: why does this technique never prominently reappear in his later work, not even in such gdefridden poems as "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" or "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life"? "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" obviously delves into areas of personal loss and rejection of this life's necessary emotional damage, in place of the appetite for experience and the positive, confident tone so typical of most of his work. Yet no biographer has identified with certainty any event that would account for a desolation so profound. I can only suggest that the poem commemorates a sense of loss so encompassing as never to leave Whitman completely, yet which, even if surmounted, could not be permitted to drive him again to explore so extensively his own musical and emotional depths.