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Oliver Wendell Holmes - The Last Leaf
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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 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!"

   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.
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