Summary and Form
Following "Out of the Cradle Endlessly
Rocking," this poem is
another newcomer to the 1860 edition of Leaves of
Grass. If "Out of the Cradle" describes the
birth and adolescence of a poet, then "As I Ebb'd"
poem is one of mid-life crisis. This is Whitman's
"Dejection Ode," the
place where he faces up to the fact that his poetry
might not be doing what he wants it to be doing.
The occasion of the poem is a walk along the beach,
during which the narrator is "seeking types" and
trying to create poetry. Suddenly he is struck by
massive doubt, and sees his poetry as a manifestation
of ego that approaches neither the universal nor his
fundamental self. He sees the shore as a place of
wrecks and corpses strewn on the sand, and realizes
that he himself will be no more than debris someday.
Commentary
The center of this poem is Whitman's assertion that
"I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
/ But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me
stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreached...
/ ...I have not really understood any thing, not a
single object, and...no man ever can." By trying to
write poetry he has opened himself up to attack, both
by external forces--cruel nature, his fellow man--and
by internal doubts. The imagery of this poem
reflects the ruin that he feels awaits him: scum, scales,
and corpses litter the beach.
What is truly remarkable about the poem, though, is
that Whitman, like Coleridge
before him, is able to turn the dejection and the
imagery of ruin into poetry. While he may end in
ruin, and his poetry may be nothing but garbage on the
beach, here he is writing poetry about the junk on
the beach before him. It is a part of the world too.
While he may be failing in his attempts to understand
himself and the world, Whitman is nonetheless
creating something that may last, even if just as
refuse.
The attack on his own ego in this poem is a direct
result of the kind of perspective gained at the end
of "Out of the Cradle." Faced with death and decay
Whitman must admit his own relative smallness in the
face of the universe. While this has left him with
some hope at the end of the earlier poem, here he
explores its darker consequences. Since he must
admit that death will rob him of the chance even to
fully know himself, he cannot see any way to possibly
comment on the whole of the universe. He is left in
the position of merely asking later generations to
heed his wreck.
