Example V.—­“The Last Leaf."

    1. 
    “I saw | him once | before
    As he pass |-ed by | the door,
        And again
    The pave |-ment stones | resound
    As he tot |-ters o’er | the ground
        With his cane.

    2. 
    They say | that in | his prime,
    Ere the prun |-ing knife of Time
        Cut him down,
    Not a bet |-ter man | was found
    By the cri |-er on | his round
        Through the town.

    3. 
    But now | he walks | the streets,
    And he looks | at all | he meets
        So forlorn;
    And he shakes | his fee |-ble head,
    That it seems | as if | he said,
        They are gone.

    4. 
    The mos |-sy mar |-bles rest
    On the lips | that he | has press’d
        In their bloom;
    And the names | he lov’d | to hear
    Have been carv’d | for man |-y a year
        On the tomb.

    5. 
    My grand |-mamma | has said,—­
    Poor old La |-dy! she | is dead
        Long ago,—­
    That he had | a Ro |-man nose,
    And his cheek | was like | a rose
        In the snow.

    6. 
    But now | his nose | is thin,
    And it rests | upon | his chin
        Like a staff;
    And a crook | is in | his back
    And a mel |-anchol |-y crack
        In his laugh.

    7. 
    I know | it is | a sin
    For me [thus] | to sit | and grin
        At him here;
    But the old | three-cor |-ner’d hat,
    And the breech |-es, and | all that,
        Are so queer!

    8. 
    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 | forsak |-en bough
        Where I cling.” 
        OLIVER W. HOLMES:  The Pioneer, 1843, p. 108.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­Composite verse, especially if the lines be short, is peculiarly liable to uncertainty, and diversity of scansion; and that which does not always abide by one chosen order of quantities, can scarcely be found agreeable; it must be more apt to puzzle than to please the reader.  The eight stanzas of this last example, have eight lines of iambic trimeter; and, since seven times in eight, this metre holds the first place in the stanza, it is a double fault, that one such line seems strayed from its proper position.  It would be better to prefix the word Now to the fourth line, and to mend the forty-third thus:—­

   “And should | I live | to be”—­

The trissyllabic feet of this piece, as I scan it, are numerous; being the sixteen short lines of monometer, and the twenty-four initial feet of the lines of seven syllables.  Every one of the forty—­(except the thirty-sixth, “The last leaf”—­) begins with a monosyllable which may be varied in quantity; so that, with stress laid on this monosyllable, the foot becomes an amphimac; without such stress, an anapest.