Out of the ceaselessly rocking cradle of the sea waves, a memory comes back to the poet. He recalls that as a child, he left his bed and "wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot" in search of the mystery of life and death. He is a man now but "by these tears a little boy again," and he throws himself on the shore "confronting the waves." He is a "chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter," and he uses all his experiences but goes beyond them.
The experience he now recalls is that on the Paumanok seashore one May, when lilacs were in bloom, he observed two mockingbirds, "feather'd guests from Alabama." The female crouch'd on her nest, silent," and the male went "to and fro near at hand." The birds sang of their love; the words "two together" summed up their existence. One day the female disappeared, "may-be kill'd, unknown to her mate." The male anxiously awaited her, He addressed the wind: "I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me." His song penetrated the heart of the curious boy who "treasur'd every note for he understood the meaning of the bird, whom he called his "brother."
The bird's lament, or "aria," affected the boy deeply. Every shadow seemed to the bird the hoped-for shape of his mate reappearing. He had loved, but now "we two [are] together no more.
The notes of the bird were echoed by the moaning sea, "the fierce old mother." To the boy who became the poet, "to the outsetting bard," the sea hinted at secrets. The boy eagerly asked the sea to let him know the ultimate meaning, "the word final, superior to all." Before daybreak the sea whispered to the poet the "delicious word death . . . /Death, death."
In this experience the boy attempted to fuse the vision of the sea with that of the bird, and this knowledge marked the beginning of the poet in him. The bird, the solitary singer, was a projection of the boy's consciousness. The sea, like the "old crone rocking the cradle," whispered the key word in his ears.
