I Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing

Walt Whitman

   I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
   All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;
   Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark
         green,
   And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;
   But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone
         there, without its friend, its lover near--for I knew I could
         not;
   And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and
         twined around it a little moss,
   And brought it away--and I have placed it in sight in my room;
   It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
   (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)
   Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly
         love;                                                        10
   For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana,
         solitary, in a wide flat space,
   Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
   I know very well I could not.

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