Using Voyaging Texts; Composer’s Program Note

            A program note, the full Whitman text, and the Introduction appear below suitable to copy for printing. (Dates of composition of the poetry and music and dedications by the composer are found in the score at the beginning of each movement.) Permission is granted to freely reproduce the title and list of movements with texts (public domain poetry) and brief version of program notes. The Introduction is under copyright but reproducible for performances of Voyaging. Texts from movements II-X appear as they are found in the 1881 “Deathbed” Edition of Leaves of Grass as presented in the Norton Critical Edition (ed. Michael Moon).

COMPOSER’S PROGRAM NOTE

            Voyaging delves into Whitman’s poetry of the sea, and the American author’s fascination of its existential and spiritual metaphors. I am drawn to the seafaring poems in the author’s work which led me to select this vivid poetry. Before we notice the depth of Whitman’s text, we are brought by the bells and harp and chorus into the fluid and tumultuous space of Voyaging with the overture of “The Ship Starting,” where we first suspect that the “Ship” is something more to Whitman than a wooden vessel. A cyclical pattern of harmony underpins this metaphor throughout the songs. Warning alarm bells signal the unaccompanied poem “Aboard at a Ship's Helm,” the text selected first when the project began. Here the text drives the music to illustrate a Voyager, a young sailor, dutifully minding warnings. But the crux of all ten poems rests in the last lines, where we learn the real voyage is of the transcendent soul, aboard the ship of the physical body.

            The journey continues with an ever-widening passage; the speaker convinces his soul to explore the world and defy time, returning back to experience all creation in the verse from “Passage to India.” The music reverses and winds the passage back down. Once back to the beginning, the chorus is immediately propelled in “The Untold Want” by the vibrant exhortation “now…” addressing the Voyager with vigor and intrepid energy. A second poem is set, beginning “Gliding o’er all…” and spanning all the wide dimension it describes. A 4-note motif at the word “Gliding” is one of the primary musical motifs of the song cycle and is woven into other movements. This second poem encourages the singing of both life and death, and the choir will merge it with the energy of the former poem, appealing all the more “now” to set sail on the soul’s voyage.

            “Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd” shows how Whitman sees that all things and fragile bodies are tenderly interconnected as undying self-aware souls across the vast and unpredictable ocean; his poetry is represented here without words. Then the most famous of the Whitman poetry selected, “O Captain! My Captain!” follows, serving as the center of the larger work. Bell tones on the shoreline heralding the return of the victorious ship are set against impassioned phrases of shock on the deck that the leader has perished. While the other poems depict the voyage of the soul aboard the body and the eagerness to sail forth, this poem (itself metaphorical for the Civil War and the fallen Lincoln) depicts the starkness of returning to a fresh tragedy. It describes the death of the “body” of a people; for Whitman, this leader/Voyager represents the whole, and in the poet’s optimistic vision of democracy, the extension of the self through others means that though a body has perished, the “soul” of the people is not lost.

            The news reaches land and the messengers and bell towers of the people, and “The Sobbing of the Bells” ties the souls of the people together. The voyage continues through grief into an awareness of the nature and continuity of death and life both. The Voyager is borne into limitless realms in the second “Passage,” as two choirs join back as one and the exotic tones of strange lands sound from strange instruments. The once-young Voyager is joyful in death also, even along with a shipmate appreciating everyone’s place in all things; in “Joy, Shipmate, Joy!” fellow Voyagers are freely untethering, one-by-one, from the shore. The bodily death sees the soul of the now-old sailor leaving the adventures of earth’s oceans in “Now Finale to the Shore.” The exhortation to “depart” is now given one last meaning. The ocean, the poet’s most complete expression of endless nature, is now for the sailor a continuous and infinite voyage.

Movement Titles and Texts; Introduction by Daniel Clausen

I. The Ship Starting
II. Aboard at a Ship’s Helm
III. Passage 1: Passage to India (from part 7b)
IV. The Untold Want (with Gliding O’er All)
V. Interlude 1: Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd (music based on the poem)
VI. O Captain! My Captain!
VII. Interlude 2: The Sobbing of the Bells (music based on the poem)
VIII. Passage 2: Passage to India (from part 8d)
IX. Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
X. Now Finale to the Shore

TEXT

I. The Ship Starting

Lo! the unbounded sea!
On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sails—an ample Ship, carrying even her moonsails;
The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so stately—below, emulous waves press forward,
They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam.

II. Aboard at a Ship's Helm

Aboard at a ship's helm,
A young steersman steering with care.

Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
An ocean bell—O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.

For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition,
The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails,
The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly and safe.

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

III. Passage 1: Passage to India (part 7b)

O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,
Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
Of man, the voyage of his mind's return,
To reason's early paradise,
Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions,
Again with fair creation.

IV. The Untold Want
(with Gliding O’er All)

The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.
Gliding o'er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.

V. Interlude 1: Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd (music based on these words)

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering [I love you, before long I die,
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.]

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;
Be not impatient—a little space—know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.

VI. O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

VII. Interlude 2: The Sobbing of the Bells (music based on these words)

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.

VIII. Passage 2: Passage to India (part 8d)

O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

IX. Joy, Shipmate, Joy!

Joy, shipmate, joy!
(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,)
Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore,
Joy, shipmate, joy.

X. Now Finale to the Shore

Now finale to the shore,
Now, land and life finale and farewell,
Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)
Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas,
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port and hawser's tie returning;
But now obey thy cherish'd secret wish,
Embrace thy friends, leave all in order,
To port and hawser's tie no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise old Sailor.

WALT WHITMAN

Introduction: Seafaring and the World of Walt Whitman

            In 1855, the year that Walt Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the United States was in the midst of a revolution in daily life. The country that had entered the century as a pre-industrial agrarian backwater was fast becoming a global industrial powerhouse. Railroads, factories, and improved roads are well known facets of this revolution—and all remain a part (more or less) of American life today, over 160 years later. But another feature of daily life for Whitman has largely faded from modern view: the sailors and ships that carry global commerce.

            Whitman was from Brooklyn, then an independent city unconnected to Manhattan by any bridge. With its sheltered location on New York harbor, Whitman’s Brooklyn was home to a navy yard and the busy commercial docks and quays of Red Hook. Along with its sister city across the harbor, Brooklyn was one of the busiest ports in the world. Visiting a nineteenth century port like Brooklyn must have been an overwhelming sensory experience—the forest of masts, the earthy smell of pine tar and hemp, the many stevedores and sailors shouting and singing while loading and unloading ships’ holds or refitting ships, and artisans making rope, sails, the ships and boats themselves, and all the supplies that let those vessels circle the globe. Without mechanized help, all these jobs were performed by artisans and laborers—shipyards bustled with human activity all day long.

            And those waterfronts were also places where the far-flung corners of the world felt near at hand. Sailors were remarkable for their exotic experiences and the trinkets and handicrafts they bought home—whether from the East Indies, Patagonia, or London. They had been places and seen things that the home-dwelling farmers and artisans could hardly comprehend, and thus had an aura of romance and mystery. But the practical aspects of crossing the “watery part of the world” as fellow New York author Melville famously put it, were also impressive. Sailing ships had thousands of moving parts—and the then-new coal steamers were equally complicated, if admittedly less graceful. Sailors, captains, and harbor pilots used great skill and deep knowledge to take such complex assemblages of organic material around the globe.

            At sea the experience was more elemental—only air and water and the limits of the deck for weeks. The surface of the ocean often hid marvels—whales, strange flotsam, half-glimpsed creatures that proved the limits of perception and knowledge. Venturing out onto the protean sea entailed great risk. Shipwrecks were common, weather unpredictable, and even piracy or seizure were not unheard of. Even on a relatively uneventful voyage, loneliness and homesickness were inevitable. And though deep community could form on a ship, strife and alienation were equally as likely. But sailors on the whole always were incredibly hardy, strong working men, if stereotypically rough around the edges. Whitman loved them for it.

            As the poems in this cycle demonstrate, the symbols and images drawn from the sea had profound meaning for Whitman, who returned again and again to themes anchored in seafaring. One of his earliest poems drew on a voyage to New Orleans, and Whitman’s poetry would draw deeply on the felt ambiguities of voyages right to the end of his life. In “Aboard at a Ship’s Helm” he highlights the risk that accompanies the assumption of responsibility for setting a course, both for material wealth and “the ship aboard the ship” of the soul. In “Passage to India” the circumnavigation of the globe becomes also a journey into a mythic and personal history, reflection on the mysteries of fate and earthly comprehensibility. And in “Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd” the sea itself is contemplated as both unified and multitude: a crowd containing individuals. The ocean becomes democracy and nation, the contemplatable many who exist despite our ability to experience only at the level of individual—such a hymn of unity was both aspiration and necessary in the era of the nations’ deepest and most violent divisions.

            Whitman also saw in the social order of a ship models for American democracy, and his most famous poem, “O Captain! My Captain!” was written for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman viewed as a representative man. And the rest of the poems intensify the ambiguity of death—a departure and a voyage from the solidity of life. He calls for “Joy, shipmate, Joy!” in the face of a voyage into an infinite unknown, a metaphysical world-ocean. Whitman was well acquainted with death. He kept tens of thousands of wounded, often dying soldiers company in the bloody hospitals and camps of Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. And, having early in his career written about the body as soul, he eventually saw a more complex relationship—one hinted by ships that disappeared, beyond communication, over the horizon, never to return.

            Though we may in the 21st century stand at the ocean shoreline, awestruck by the sensory infinity of the sea, a direct relationship like Whitman’s is mostly beyond our reach. The voyaging poems both capture that relationship, and in some degree rely on our ability to imagine it for them to have their full impact. Whitman’s ocean, sailors, and ships were embodied, immediate, and intimate. His familiarity with this physicality enriched the symbolism and emotion of these pieces. But as with all of Whitman’s poetry, the richness remains—an inspiration, solace, and joy to generations of readers in America and around the world.

Daniel Clausen
2018

For a (comparatively) brief biography of Whitman see: “Walt Whitman” by Ed Folsom and Ken Price. https://whitmanarchive.org/biography/walt_whitman/index.html