These, I, Singing In Spring

   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 should be the poet of comrades?)
   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,
         pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
   (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 go,
   Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
         silence,
   Alone I had thought--yet soon a troop gathers around me,           10
   Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or
         neck,
   They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive--thicker they come,
         a great crowd, and I in the middle,
   Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
   Plucking something for tokens--tossing toward whoever is near me;
   Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
   Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd 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 pondside,
   (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 comrades--this
         Calamus-root shall,                                          20
   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 currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
   These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
   Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from
         me,
   Indicating to 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 to them that love, as I myself am capable
         of loving.