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, stand- ing 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 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.