The speaker of this poem notes how a figure “arous’d” the “sweet hell” within him, “the unknown want, the destiny of me,” before he shouts, “O give me the clew!” This poem repeatedly refers to the “yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping,” and “lagging.” This poem ends with the speaker learning the “key” word that arose from the fusion of the “thousand responsive songs at random” and the “song of my dusky demon and brother.” The earliest draft of this poem was titled “A (*) Child’s Reminiscence.” Part of this poem is rendered in italics to translate a “solitary guest from Alabama” calling for his mate. The section Sea-Drift begins with this poem. The sea whispers “the low and delicious word death” in this poem set on “Paumanok’s gray beach.” For 10 points, a boy listens to a mockingbird in what Walt Whitman poem that personifies the sea as an old woman swaying a crib? ■END■
ANSWER: “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” [accept “A Child’s Reminiscence” until it is read; or “A Word Out of the Sea”; or “A Voice Out of the Sea”]
<Literature - American Literature - Poetry>
= Average correct buzz position