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Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “The Last Leaf” · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson and today is Monday, August 31st, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Oliver Wendell Holmes and it's called The Last Leaf.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was inspired by a historical figure that Holmes met or encountered personally,
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  SPEAKER_00: another Boston native,
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  SPEAKER_00: Thomas Melville,
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  SPEAKER_00: who was one of the last surviving perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party.
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  SPEAKER_00: For Holmes,
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  SPEAKER_00: Melville came to represent the Last of a disappearing generation at
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  SPEAKER_00: a pivotal turning point in the nation's history.
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  SPEAKER_00: And though perhaps their greater historical significance is not on par,
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  SPEAKER_00: it did strike me this last week with the death of Dolly Parton that we're at
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  SPEAKER_00: a similar moment in our own time in so much as Her passing has been described
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  SPEAKER_00: by some as the loss of the last universally beloved public figure,
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  SPEAKER_00: that between the general cliquishness of modern history,
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  SPEAKER_00: Media and technology,
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  SPEAKER_00: everyone is able to and encouraged to have their own sort of niche pocket interests.
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  SPEAKER_00: Less and less, we have a common monoculture and we have just innumerable subcultures.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then two, our culture at large has become so much more politically fragmented and insular.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we just have very few figures that everyone has affection or respect for.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the loss of that, again,
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  SPEAKER_00: is not an identical shift,
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  SPEAKER_00: but seems like a parallel shift in a culture and between two generations.
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  SPEAKER_00: This seems like a perfect time for this poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was once praised by a young literary critic,
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  SPEAKER_00: Edgar Allan Poe,
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  SPEAKER_00: as one of the finest works in the English language,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it was later greatly beloved,
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  SPEAKER_00: memorized, and quoted by President Abraham Lincoln.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can decide for yourself if it still holds up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem, The Last Leaf.
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  SPEAKER_00: I saw him once before,
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  SPEAKER_00: as he passed by the door,
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  SPEAKER_00: and again the pavement stones resound as he totters o'er the ground with his cane.
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  SPEAKER_00: They say that in his prime ere the pruning knife of time cut him down,
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  SPEAKER_00: not a better man was found by the crier on his round through the town.
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  SPEAKER_00: But now he walks the streets and looks at all he meets,
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  SPEAKER_00: sad and wan,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he shakes his feeble head, that it seems as if he said, they are gone.
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  SPEAKER_00: The mossy marbles rest on the lips that he has pressed in their bloom,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the names he loved to hear have been carved for many a year on the tomb.
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  SPEAKER_00: My grandmama has said,
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  SPEAKER_00: poor old lady,
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  SPEAKER_00: she is dead long ago,
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  SPEAKER_00: that he had a Roman nose, and his cheek was like a rose in the snow.
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  SPEAKER_00: But now his nose is thin,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it rests upon his chin,
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  SPEAKER_00: like a staff, and a crook is in his back, and a melancholy crack in his laugh.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know it is a sin for me to sit and grin at him here,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the old three-cornered hat and the breeches and all that are so queer.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if I should live to be the last leaf upon the tree in the spring,
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  SPEAKER_00: let them smile as I do now at the old forsaken bough where I cling.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
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  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem,
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  SPEAKER_00: share thoughts about a particular poem,
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  SPEAKER_00: or subscribe and become a supporter of the show.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.