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The Last Leaf
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
“They are gone.”
The mossy marbles rest
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.
My grandmamma has said—
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
_______________________
The Last Leaf is a beautiful, fun poem, about aging and life more generally. It’s a 48 line poem, comprised of 8 sestet (six line) stanzas. The rhyme scheme for each stanza consists of an AABCCB rhyme scheme. The meter is consistent throughout as well, from stanza to stanza. The first two lines of each stanza consist of three beats each. The 3rd line is 3 syllables (one and a half beats.) Lines four and five of each stanza are seven syllables (three and a half beats.) The sixth line of each stanza is three syllables (one and a half beats.) The effect of the meter is to give the piece a musical quality that builds upon itself as you read it, with each stanza building upon and reinforcing the previous one.
The poem by Holmes presents metaphor. For much of the piece, he describes an old man, however, in the last stanza he describes the subject of his poem as “the last leaf” and this description then reframes the first five stanzas. All of the descriptions of the old man also work as descriptions of an aged, fallen leaf, blowing in the breeze on the street – from the description of him being cut down, to the cane, to the crook in his back, to the three cornered hat. Even the description of there being a “melancholy crack in his laugh” might refer to the scraping sound a leaf makes on the pavement as the wind blows it around.
It’s a brilliant and poignant metaphor for aging. There comes a point in a particularly aged person’s life when everyone they grew up with is gone, and much of what is around them has changed. This might leave said person – like the old man in the poem – dressed in a no-longer-fashionable way.
The poem is a reminder that leaf and human alike, we begin strong, vibrant, and usually in a large community of fresh newcomers to this world, but over time we become thin and feeble, changed and increasingly alone. Someone is the last of his or her era to leave, but first there is a period of strange and out of sync lingering. The Speaker hopes to face that fate well, if it befalls him, and he hopes to inspire smiles from those around him. I share that hope for myself.
