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Setting of selections from Walt Whitman’s coming-of-age poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” In it, a boy watches a bird who waits in vain for its mate to return from the sea. In the process, both come to understand death. This dramatic work, which won a BMI Student Composer Award, is intended for a medium- to large-sized choir, including a tenor soloist drawn from its ranks.
Text (excerpts): Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,) Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me? For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you, now in a moment I know what I am for . . . O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,) O if I am to have so much, let me have more! A word then, (for I will conquer it,) the word final, superior to all, subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen; are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves? Whereto answered the sea, delaying not, hurrying not, lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death, death, death, death, death . . .
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