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 many love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat place
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.
--W. Whitman
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