Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/355

Rh

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, picked 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 get, Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and
 * then in the 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 wander
 * with them,

Plucking something for tokens—something for these,
 * till I hit upon a name—tossing toward whoever
 * is near me,