nd the sacred place where we delighted,
Where we worshipped, in the days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the care!
I have come to see that grave once more.

"Angel," said he sadly, "I am old;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow,
Now, why I sit here thou hast been told."
In his eye another pearl of sorrow,
Down it rolled!
"Angel," said he sadly, "I am old."

By the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing;
Still I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape, like a page, perusing;
Poor, unknown!
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.

RALPH HOYT.

THE LAST LEAF.

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
So forlorn;
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 had pressed
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 the 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.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

THE LAST LEAF.

YA PEREZHIL SVOI ZHELANYA.

I've overlived aspirings,
My fancies I disdain;
The fruit of hollow-heartedness,
Sufferings alone remain.

'Neath cruel storms of Fate
With my crown of bay,
A sad and lonely life I lead,
Waiting my latest day.

Thus, struck by latter cold
While howls the wintry wind,
Trembles upon the naked bough
The last leaf left behind.

From the Russian of ALEKSANDER SERGYEVICH POUSHKIN.
Translation of JOHN POLLEN.

THE OLD VAGABOND.

Here in the ditch my bones I'll lay;
Weak, wearied, old, the world I lea