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These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their
     sorrow and joy?
And who but I sould be the poet of comerades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world--but
     soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side--now wading in a little,
     fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones
     thrown there, picked from the fields, have accu-
     mulated,
Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through
     the stones, and partly cover them--Beyond these
     I pass,
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I get,
Solitary, smelling the earthly smell, stopping now and then in   

     silence,
Alone I had thought--yet soon a silent troop gathers
     around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some
     embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive--thicker
     they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wan-
     der with them,
Plucking something for tokens--something for these,
     till I hit upon a theme--tossing toward whoever
     is near me,

page 348

Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off
    a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of
    sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in
    the pond-side,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me--and
    returns again, never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of
    comerades--this calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other!  Let none
    render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and
    chestnut,
And stems of currents, and plum-blows, and the
    aromatic cedar;
These I, compassed around by a thick cloud of
    spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them
    loosely from me,
Indicatingto each one what he shall have--giving
    something to each,
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that
    I reserve,
I will give of it--but only them that love, as I
    myslef am capable of loving.