I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2> <SPAN name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060"></SPAN> I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing </h2> <p> 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 grew there uttering joyous of dark green,<br/> And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,<br/> But I wonder’d 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 and<br/> 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 in a wide flat space,<br/> Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,<br/> I know very well I could not.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />