The last leaf (James McGranahan)

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• (Posted 2023-11-15)  CPDL #77372:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-11-15).   Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 505 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The last leaf
Composer: James McGranahan
Lyricist: Oliver Wendell Holmes
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1878 John Church & Co.
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

I saw him once before,
As he passed the cottage 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.