Robert Schultz was talking to one of his fellow English professors at Roanoke College last year when he heard about a survey of the original 795 copies of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

A scholar in Iowa was trying to locate as many of the extremely valuable first editions as possible, partly in preparation for this year's 150th anniversary of the landmark work.

Schultz's colleague mentioned offhandedly that the college's Fintel Library had a first edition of "Leaves" in its very own archives, a 2002 gift from an alumnus.

"You mean a photocopy, right?" Schultz asked.

No, this version was the rare, real deal -- and one of the even rarer cloth-bound copies, too, of which only 200 were printed. Several pages of type were hand set by the bearded bard himself.

Schultz hightailed it to the library, where an archivist pulled the treasure from the stacks. The professor gingerly held the volume, and he marveled:

Here, in his own hands, was arguably the most important work in American poetry.

"The hair actually stood up on the back of my neck," Schultz recalls.

It was a thrill, he knew, that he would have to share with his students. Which explains why poet Stanley Plumly, a noted Whitman scholar from the University of Maryland, will address Roanoke College students -- and any other Whitman lovers -- tonight.

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Dear sir,

I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "Leaves of Grass." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed. I give you joy of your free & brave thought.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote those words in a letter to Whitman barely two weeks after the book was published in July 1855. He appeared, by most accounts, to be the only one who liked the book.

Published and designed by Whitman himself, the first version of "Leaves" was printed by a pair of brothers who specialized in legal documents, which explained its elongated size. Whitman himself is thought to have lettered the cover, drawing whimsical roots and tufts of grass on the gold-embossed title.

In his late 30s, Whitman was a New Yorker who wrote poetry between jobs as a printer's helper, newspaper editor, carpenter and schoolteacher. He was known as a bohemian, or a "rough," and his exaltation of the body and sexual love were considered vulgar and racy for the times.

Few copies of the book sold, some libraries banned it and most reviewers were offended by its sexual frankness and free verse, though one critic conceded that Whitman did possess an "odd genius."

"We're talking about a time when people actually put skirts on pianos because they thought the legs might remind people of a woman's body," explains Schultz, a poet-novelist who first encountered Whitman's work in high school.

A Quaker, Whitman preached oneness, a radical-for-the-times kind of democracy that put the shopkeeper and the congressman on equal footing. Grass is "growing among [the yards of] black folks as among white ... I receive them the same," he wrote.

He wrote not in the iambic pentameter common of 19th-century poetry but in long, musical lines that mirrored the Italian operas he loved and the rhythms of the King James Bible. "He really sounded American in a way that no one else before him had," Schultz says.

The value of the Roanoke College copy is "well over $50,000," according to archivist Linda Miller. Alumnus and college trustee W. Morgan Churchman donated it to the college after purchasing it at a rare-books auction -- and then promptly took off on a six-month hike of the Appalachian Trail.

Miller contacted the Philadelphia businessman last week to tell him how much the book was worth. She could tell by his reaction that he'd paid "much less than that" for it and was surprised by its value.

"But he was like, 'Oh well,' " she said.

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Whereas many Roanokers take out-of-towners to visit the Mill Mountain Star, Bob Schultz takes them to the basement of the Fintel Library to see the book.

He's not alone in his enthusiasm. Several area writers have asked to see it, and Schultz knows of a group of poets who burst into tears at the sound of Whitman's voice on a rare recording of "America," available on the Web at whitmanarchive.org.

"He had a Brooklyn accent," Schultz enthuses. "When he says 'ample,' it comes out 'aaaample.' It just floored me."

Whitman's work is particularly relevant in these polarized times, he adds. During the Civil War, Whitman nursed Northern and Southern soldiers in a Washington, D.C., army hospital, helping them write letters home.

"I can imagine him doing the same at a VA hospital somewhere right now," Schultz says. "He was a champion of the common person. He would've been right in there with the people in the [New Orleans] Superdome, trying to recover."

The book will be on display during tonight's Plumly lecture, and Schultz hopes the event inspires students to read more of Whitman's groundbreaking work.

"Reading is a way of seeing through someone else's eyes, and Whitman was above all a poet of sympathy, a poet of sympathy for the other," he says.

Schultz compares reading Whitman to time travel. "It's like a Vulcan mind meld -- all these things you can't do except through this old-fashioned thing called reading.

"How else can you take a ride on the Brooklyn ferry in the 1860s and, while you're at it, ride around in the brain of Walt Whitman as he walks around? That would be so cool!"

If the words of the bohemian poet alone don't inspire you, students, take note: Schultz will be taking attendance.