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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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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?
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And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) |
Collecting I traverse the garden the world, but soon I pass the
gates,
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Now along the pond-side, now wading in a little, fearing not the
wet,
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Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown there,
pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
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(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones
and partly cover them, beyond these I pass,)
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Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I think
where I go,
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Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
silence,
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Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me, |
Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my
arms or neck,
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They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come,
a great crowd, and I in the middle,
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Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them, |
Plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is near me, |
Here, lilac, with a branch of pine, |
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Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak
in Florida as it hung trailing down,
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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,
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(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again
never to separate from me,
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And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, this
calamus-root shall,
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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,
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Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to
each;
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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.
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