These, I, Singing in Spring

1THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,

2(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?

3And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)

4Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,

5Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,

6Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick’d from the

7 fields,

8 have accumulated,

9(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover

10 them—Beyond

11 these I pass,)

12Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,

13Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,

14Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me,

15Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,

16They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd,

17 and I

18 in the

19 middle,

20Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,

21Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me;

22Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,

23Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it

24 hung

25 trailing

26 down,

27Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,

28And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,

29(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate

30 from

31 me,

32And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall,

33Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)

34And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,

35And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:

36These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,

37Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,

38Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each;

39But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,

40I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.