Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing - Walt Whitman

[Larry Robinson]

 Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing

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 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;
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.

	- Walt Whitman
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