UC-NRLF /BERKEIE/ i LiBRfAlY I UNIVERSITY OF \CAUFORNIA HUGH w. DEWES POEfl LONI LOW, (UMITED) JT. DUNJTAN 6 HOUJE LANE, FLEET Jr., E. c. 1694 C2 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASS U - S A ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY H O HOUGHTON & CO 332 r ^~/ " That he had a roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow "... Frontispiece. Preface i, 2 The Last Leaf . . . . . . 6 The Last Leaf, continued .... 7 The Last Leaf, concluded .... 8 Half-Title " / saw him once before, As he passed by the door" . to face page 10 " They say that in his prime, Ere the priming-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found 1 1 . to face 12 " By the Crier on his round" . . to face 14 " Through the town " . . . to face i 6 IWTMTPNJ ~ N^_ " But now he -walks the streets " . to face page 18 " The streets " to face 20 " The mossy marbles rest " . . .to face 22 " The lips that he has f rest" . . to face 24 " In their bloom " . . . . .to face 26 " And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb "... to face 28 " On the tomb" .- . , . . to face 30 " My grandmamma has said, Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago " .... to face 32 " Like a rose in the snow " . . .to face 34 " In the snow " to face 36 J " But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff" . " The old three-cornered hat And the breeches and all that Are so queer " " If I should live to be The last leaf itpon the tree In the spring" . " The last leaf upon the tree " . " In the spring " . " The old forsaken bough " The End . History of the poem . . History of the poem, continued History of the poem, concluded 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 ! " / 7 w^ ~ Continued The mossy marbles rest j 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. For me to sit and grin At him here. 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. W 1\ - 10 cfi t JM "" ! <V 7 &* "- % .^/X been. O]l (lie e/ 30 _ &t nv Ivf nlW chin ^K^p N \^ Tnc CND THE HISTORY OF THIS POEM MY publishers tell me that it would add to the interest of the Poem if I would men tion any circumstances connected with composition, publication, and reception. This request must be the excuse of my communicative ness. Just when it was written 1 cannot exactly say, nor in what paper or periodical it was first published. It must have been written before April, 1833 ; probably in 1831 or 18^2. It was republished in the first edition of my poems ", in the year 1836. The Poem was suggested by the sight of a figure well known to Bostonians of the years just mentioned, that of Major Thomas Melville, " the last of the cocked hats," as he was sometimes called. The Major had been a personable young man, very evidently, and retained evidence of it in " The monumental pomp of age, which had something imposing and something odd about it for youthful eyes like mine, pointed at as one of the " Indians " He was often of the famous " Boston Tea-Party " of 1774. His aspect among the crowds of a later generation reminded me of a with ered leaf which has held to its stem through the storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself still clinging to its bough while the new growths of spring are bursting their buds and spreading their foliage all around it. I make this explanation for the benefit of those who have been puzzled by the lines The last leaf upon the tree In the Spring, The way in which it came to be written in a somewhat singular meas- re was this. I had become a little known as a versifier, and I thought that one or M\\ si two other young writers were following my efforts with imitations, not meant as paro dies and hardly to be considered improve ments on their models. I determined to write in a measure which would at once betray any copyist. So far as it was suggested by any previous poem, the echo must have come from Campbell s " Battle of the Baltic," with its short terminal lines, such as the last of these two, By thy wild and stormy steep, Elsinore. But 1 do not remember any poem in the same measure, except such as have been written since its pub lication. The Poem as first written had one of those false rhymes which produce a shudder in all educated persons, even in the Poems of Keats and others who ought to have known better than to admit them. The guilty verse ran thus : But now he walks the streets . And he looks at all he meets So forlorn, And lie shakes his feeble head That it seems as if lie said " They are gone ! " A little more experience, to say nothing of the sneer of an American critic in an English periodical, showed me that this would never do. Here was what is called a ; cockney rhyme," one in which the sound of the letter r is neglected. maltreated as the letter k is insulted by the average Briton by leaving it out every where except where it should be silent. Such an ill- mated pair as " forlorn " and " gone " could not pos sibly pass current in good rhyming society. But what to do about it was the question. 1 must keep " They are gone ! " ^\ and I could not think of any rhyme which I could work in satisfactorily. In this perplexity my friend, Mrs. Folsom, wife of that excel lent scholar, Mr. Charles Folsom, then and for a long time the unsparing and infallible corrector of the press at Cambridge, suggested the line " Sad and wan," which I thankfully adopted and have always re tained. The Poem has been occasionally imitated, often reprinted, and not rarely spoken well of. I hope I shall be forgiven for mentioning three tributes which have been especially noteworthy in my own remembrance. Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking for it, and repeated it from memory to Governor An drew, as the Governor himself told me. 1 have a copy of it made by the hand of Edgar Allan Poe, with an introductory remark which I will quote in connection with the one which precedes it. "If we regard at the same time accuracy, rhythm, melody, and invention, or novel combination of metre, I should have no hesitation in saying that a young and true poetess of Kentucky, Mrs. Amelia Welby, has done more in the way of really good verse than any individual among us. I shall be pardoned, neverthe less, for quoting and commenting upon an excellently well conceived and well managed specimen of versifi cation, which will aid in developing some of the prop ositions already expressed. It is the Last Leaf of Oliver W. Holmes." Then follows the whole poem carefully copied in the well-known delicate hand of the famous poet and critic. The roll of manuscript nearly five feet long closes with this poem, so that the promised comment is The manuscript was given me by the late Mr. Robert Carter, a former collaborator with Mr. James Russell Lowell, one of Foe s biographers. Poe was not always over civil in speaking of New England poets. To such as were sensi tive to his vitriolic criticism, his toleration was tranquillizing, and his praise encouraging. Fifty years ago those few words of his would have pleased me if they had been published, which they never were. But the morning dew means little to the withered leaf. The last pleasant tribute antecedent to this volume of illustrations, of which it is not for me to speak, is the printing of the poem, among others, in raised letters for the use of the blind. Reminiscences idle, perhaps, to a new gen eration. It is all right ; if these egotisms amuse them they amuse me, too, as I look them over ; and so Let them smile as I do now At the old forsaken bough Where 1 cling. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. BEVEULY FARMS, July ()th, 1885. YC185314