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