Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
The Last LeafOliver Wendell Holmes (18091894)
I
As he pass’d by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
‘They are gone.’
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-corner’d hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.