And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.

3.

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,

For these leaves, and me, you will not understand, They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainly elude you,

Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!

Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written

this book,

Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,

Nor do those know me best who admire me,

praise me,

and vauntingly

Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,

Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhaps more;

For all is useless without that which you may guess at

many times and not hit—that which I hinted at;

Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

T

SINGING IN SPRING.

HESE 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,

go,

Far, far in the forest, before I think where I
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—tossing toward whoever

is near me.

Here lilac, with a branch of pine,

Here out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled 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

pond-side,

(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,

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, compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits, Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,

* I am favoured with the following indication, from Mr. Whitman himself, of the relation in which this word Calamus is to be understood:—" Calamus is the very large and aromatic grass or rush growing about water-ponds in the valleys—spears about three feet high; often called Sweet Flag; grows all over the Northern and Middle States. The recherché or ethereal sense of the term, as used in my book, arises probably from the actual Calamus presenting the biggest and hardiest kind of spears of grass, and their fresh, aquatic, pungent bouquet."

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,

LOVE OF COMRADES.

I.

COME, I will make the continent indissoluble;

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon!

I will make divine magnetic lands,

With the love of comrades,

With the life-long love of comrades.

2.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies;

I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each. other's necks;

By the love of comrades,

By the manly love of comrades.

3.

For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma

femme!

For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,

In the love of comrades,

In the high-towering love of comrades.

PULSE OF MY LIFE.

OT heaving from my ribbed breast only;

N°

Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;

Not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs;

Not in many an oath and promise broken;

Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition;

Not in the subtle nourishment of the air;

Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists;

Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will

one day cease;

Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only;

Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the wilds;

Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth;

Not in sounded and resounded words—chattering words,

echoes, dead words;