2.5.2 Two other elements in the myth: water and swimmers
2.5.2 Two other elements in the myth: water and swimmers
The myth of calamus, as quoted in section 2.5.1 above, brings up other features that are present in the Leaves, besides the reed, which is really a central symbol in Leaves of Grass. They are water and swimmers. Water appears in many poems and sections of the book; however, the poet has an important relationship with the sea. The following poems address this symbolism of water: “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life”, both from the cluster “SEA-DRIFT”, which was compiled in 1881, even though these poems had been actually written in 1859. “Out of the Cradle…” depicts the poet’s awakening as a bard, when he is wishing to receive a clue from the sea, so that he can have a confirmation of his intuition. “As I Ebb’d…”, which was originally titled “Bardic Symbols”, describes the hard times the poet is undergoing, when he speaks to his “fierce old mother”, the sea, about his not understanding any thing at all and his oppression for having dared to open his mouth. In this sense, in “Out of the Cradle…” the poet receives the answer he was asking for in “As I Ebb’d…” Speaking of these emotionally oscillating but highly creative times of Whitman’s, Canby states in his “Study in Biography” of the American bard: “So he writes a poem [“As I Ebb’d…”] made entirely out of symbols of the ebbing and flowing sea which he knew so well, and the shores on which are flotsam and jetsam […]” (1943, p.181). “Flotsam and jetsam” are objects washed ashore, wreckage or remains from ships left floating, which is similar to the “trail of drift and debris”, a metaphor that the poet uses to describe himself in “As I Ebb’d…” (WHITMAN, 1996, p.395).
