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, 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.