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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,
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.
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Comments
i think the poem is about longing to be with similar people. the live-oak is exemplary because despite its loneliness it still stands strong continuing to grow through the ages. whitman is saying, he couldn't be alone. he wouldn't be satisfied with loneliness. it's the human condition. i think the poem is beautiful, and valid today as much as it was valid in the 19th century when he wrote it.
yakayaka from United States