Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking: Fusion of Love, Birth and Death - Essay Example

In its deepest sense, it is an exploration of the themes of birth, death and love, with each of the trio representing one of these concepts. The sea sings the song of death, the poet brings to life his verse, and the mockingbird sings of love. The poet skillfully brings out the duality of life as he addresses each of these concepts. Whitman fuses the themes of love, birth and death and shows that they are inextricably linked by natural law. The poet paints a poignant picture of love and togetherness in the mockingbirds basking in the sun, “two together” (Whitman, 34).

They sing together, mindless of the time or place, or the vagaries of the weather. However, their togetherness is short-lived, and ends with the death of the she-bird, and what remains is “the lone singer” (Whitman, 58). Togetherness is linked to an inevitable solitariness. There is both “sickness and love” (Whitman, 11) in the bird’s song. The male bird laments the loss of his love in words of deep pathos. Every aspect of nature is a reflection of his love. The waves are “embracing and lapping” (Whitman, 73), the low hanging moon “is heavy with love” (Whitman, 76), and the sea “pushes upon the land with love” (Whitman, 78).

He sees his love “dimly whichever way I look” (Whitman, 93). She is a little black thing in the breaking waves, a dusky speck in the moon. But although nature seems to echo his love, the ebb and flow of life goes on: “All else continuing” (Whitman, 133). Love is fused with death, as an unshakable natural law. Again, the poet links love and death with birth, through the nest with its “four light-green eggs, spotted with brown” (Whitman, 28). This nest is filled with the promise of life, even in the midst of the death of the bird and the loss of love.

The boy’s birth as a poet is inextricably linked with the love and death of the mockingbirds. It is only through observing the love of the birds, and the anguish of the bereaved male, that the boy becomes aware of his life’s vocation as a poet. It is by “Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating” (Whitman, 31) the behavior of the birds that the boy learns to translate nature into verse. This phrase encapsulates the duty of a poet in life. The boy, who is “a child, my tongue’s use sleeping,” (Whitman, 146) becomes a man only through listening to the dirge of the bird.

The death of the she-bird, and the pain of lost love felt by the male bird, give birth to the songs of the poet: “A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me/ Never to die” (Whitman, 149). It is death which brings about the birth of poetry. This poetry transcends death. Whitman continues to fuse the three elements of love, birth and death as he asserts that the poetry which has its source in the mockingbirds’ love and death is a new birth. In this birth as a poet, the boy becomes the “chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter” (Whitman, 20).

His verse echoes nature’s dualities of pain and happiness, the present life, and the death to come. Death is the major theme of the poem. Death is “the key, the word up from the waves” (Whitman, 179), which unlocks the puzzle of existence. Death is an unavoidable part of birth and love. The poet pleads for an answer to the suffering, and loss of love, which characterizes life, to the chaos of existence, and to the ultimate destination of men: “O give me the clue!” (Whitman, 158). When he realizes that the answer is