“Oft the aisle of that old church we trod,
  Guided hither by an angel mother;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod;
  Sire and sisters, and my little brother,
    Gone to God! 
Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.

“There I heard of Wisdom’s pleasant ways;
  Bless the holy lesson!—­but, ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise,
  Those sweet voices silent now forever! 
    Peaceful days! 
There I heard of Wisdom’s pleasant ways.

“There my Mary blessed me with her hand
  When our souls drank in the nuptial blessings,
Ere she hastened to the spirit-land,
  Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing;
    Broken band! 
There my Mary blessed me with her hand.

“I have come to see that grave once more,
  And 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.