Where is the turning point in the poem "Out of Cradle Endlessly Rocking?"

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is one of Walt Whitman's more complex poems. Its content is not as layered as that in other poems, but its form is. Multiple voices speak; natural objects and birds are anthropomorphized, or given human qualities; the poem weaves in and out of time, reverts to memory, then back to present-day.

Your focus on the "turning point" in the poem is totally subjective. Arguably, it begins early. A "curious boy" stands on the shores of Paumanok watching two birds sailing through the air and singing to one another, always together. Then, the female disappears:

Till of a sudden,

May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,

One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,

Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,

Nor even appear'd again.

The narrator describes the lonely bird's futile song:

He call'd on his mate,

He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.

This last line is the narrator speaking as a man, recalling this memory from boyhood. Later, there is a reversion back to the past, to the moment at which the boy understands the meaning behind the bird's song:

The aria sinking,

All else continuing, the stars shining, 

The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,

With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,

On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,

The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the fact of the sea almost touching,

The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,

The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,

The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,

The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,

The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering, 

The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,

To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret hissing,

To the outsetting bard.

The bird's lonesome song ("the aria") "[sinks]" or fades, perhaps due to the death of the male bird ("the outsetting bard"). The present participle "outsetting" echoes "to set out," or to depart. Meanwhile, as with the death of any living being, nature continues to operate with indifference ("the stars shining, the winds blowing").

Because this is a poem about love, eventual heartbreak, and erotic awakening, the "fierce old mother" has been interpreted in a number of ways. Some regard her as the boy's literal mother, back on shore, lamenting his emerging manhood. Others interpret her as nature, or an aspect of it. Her portrayal as "fierce" and "angry" would explain her cruel separation of the birds. The description of her as "old" plays into our expectations of nature as the ancient Earth Mother.

The decrepit image of the mother contrasts with the boy's fertile love and virility. There is parallelism between "the yellow half-moon" and an erection. At first, it is "enlarged," then, as if having fulfilled a sexual encounter, "[sags] down" and "[droops]." The moon is so large that it sinks on the horizon, "the face of the sea almost touching," as though they are in communion.

Nature partakes in the boy's fulfillment: "The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying." Notice the inversion in this line and some others. The noun subjects and noun objects are side-by-side while the verbs are pushed to the end of the lines. This form mimics the communion between the boy and nature while also providing the stanza with near-rhyme.

There is, perhaps, another shift in the next stanza:

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, I awake...

His sense of being "awake" echoes the title of the poem. He is no longer a slumbering babe, but a man who understands his romantic and erotic purposes. His perception of the bird has changed, however. Is the male bird simply a lonely warbler, wandering around singing to a long-lost mate? Or does he exist specifically to teach the boy an existential lesson? Is he a messenger from another world -- a netherworld?

From the voice and in mind of the boy, nature takes on many aspects: simple and obvious, sensual and supernatural. The poem follows his shifts in consciousness and time, anticipating the stream-of-consciousness narratives that would emerge in the twentieth-century.