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,)...
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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