1. ۱THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
2. ۲(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
3. ۳And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
4. ۴Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,
5. ۵Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
6. ۶Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick’d from the
7. ۷ fields,
8. ۸ have accumulated,
9. ۹(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover
10. ۱۰ them—Beyond
11. ۱۱ these I pass,)
12. ۱۲Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
13. ۱۳Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
14. ۱۴Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me,
15. ۱۵Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
16. ۱۶They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd,
17. ۱۷ and I
18. ۱۸ in the
19. ۱۹ middle,
20. ۲۰Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
21. ۲۱Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me;
22. ۲۲Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
23. ۲۳Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it
24. ۲۴ hung
25. ۲۵ trailing
26. ۲۶ down,
27. ۲۷Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
28. ۲۸And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
29. ۲۹(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate
30. ۳۰ from
31. ۳۱ me,
32. ۳۲And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall,
33. ۳۳Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
34. ۳۴And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
35. ۳۵And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
36. ۳۶These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,
37. ۳۷Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
38. ۳۸Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each;
39. ۳۹But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
40. ۴۰I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.