by Whitman · Cluster: Friendship · Tears
Abstract
Emblematic poem of a solitary live-oak that, unlike the poet, can utter joy without a friend near; nature, the tree as token of manly love, friendship and solitude.
Connections
Motifs: Nature, Leaves Themes & Concepts: Friendship, Comradeship, Self-Knowledge
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: CALAMUS
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 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 in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not.