{
 "id": "walt-whitman/out-of-the-cradle-endlessly-rocking",
 "title": "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking",
 "poet": "Walt Whitman",
 "poet_slug": "walt-whitman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Leaves of Grass",
 "book_slug": "leaves-of-grass",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 102,
 "container": "Sea-Drift",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1859,
  "venue": "Saturday Press (24 December 1859), as “A Child’s Reminiscence”",
  "note": "“A Word Out of the Sea” in the 1860 Leaves of Grass; final title from 1871. This text follows the 1891–92 “deathbed” edition of Leaves of Grass.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://whitmanarchive.org/item/encyclopedia_entry43",
   "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Cradle_Endlessly_Rocking"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass",
  "file": "sea-drift.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322",
   "https://archive.org/details/leavesgrass03whitgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 183,
  "n_stanzas": 34,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 115,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the Ninth-month midnight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down from the shower’d halo,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the myriad thence-arous’d words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the word stronger and more delicious than any,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From such as now they start the scene revisiting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A reminiscence sing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once Paumanok,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up this seashore in some briers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Shine! shine! shine!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pour down your warmth, great sun!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While we bask, we two together.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Two together!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Winds blow south, or winds blow north,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Day come white, or night come black,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Home, or rivers and mountains from home,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Singing all time, minding no time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While we two keep together.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Till of a sudden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May-be kill’d, unknown to her mate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor ever appear’d again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the hoarse surging of the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or flitting from brier to brier by day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The solitary guest from Alabama.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Blow! blow! blow!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok’s shore;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, when the stars glisten’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down almost amid the slapping waves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He call’d on his mate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes my brother I know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Listen’d long and long.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Listen’d to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Following you my brother.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Soothe! soothe! soothe!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But my love soothes not me, not me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Low hangs the moon, it rose late,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is lagging⁠—O I think it is heavy with love, with love.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O madly the sea pushes upon the land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With love, with love.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What is that little black thing I see there in the white?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Loud! loud! loud!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loud I call to you, my love!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Surely you must know who is here, is here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You must know who I am, my love.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Low-hanging moon!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O moon do not keep her from me any longer.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Land! land! O land!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again if you only would,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O rising stars!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O throat! O trembling throat!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sound clearer through the atmosphere!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pierce the woods, the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Shake out carols!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Solitary here, the night’s carols!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Carols of lonesome love! death’s carols!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O reckless despairing carols.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But soft! sink low!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soft! let me just murmur,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And do you wait a moment you husky-nois’d sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hither my love!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here I am! here!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This gentle call is for you my love, for you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do not be decoy’d elsewhere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those are the shadows of leaves.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O darkness! O in vain!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O I am very sick and sorrowful.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O troubled reflection in the sea!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O throat! O throbbing heart!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the air, in the woods, over fields,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But my mate no more, no more with me!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We two together no more.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The aria sinking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All else continuing, the stars shining,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the sands of Paumanok’s shore gray and rustling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The aria’s meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the boy’s soul’s questions sullenly timing, some drown’d secret hissing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the outsetting bard.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The messenger there arous’d, the fire, the sweet hell within,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The unknown want, the destiny of me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O if I am to have so much, let me have more!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A word then, (for I will conquer it,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The word final, superior to all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Subtle, sent up⁠—what is it?⁠—I listen;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whereto answering, the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Delaying not, hurrying not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And again death, death, death, death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death, death, death, death, death.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Which I do not forget,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the thousand responsive songs at random,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My own songs awaked from that hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with them the key, the word up from the waves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The word of the sweetest song and all songs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sea whisper’d me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}