The poem is very easy to understand literally. It is written in plain English with not a lot of big words or phrases. Basically, the poem is talking about a very old man. He passes by the door of the narrator twice while hobbling with his cane. When he was younger it is said that he used to be the best man in town. But now he just wanders the streets alone and seems to mourn about all of the people he used to know who are gone. The people that he loved have long since been buried. The narrator’s grandmother, who is dead, told him that long ago the man had a Roman nose and bright red cheeks. However, now he has a thin nose and a crack in his back and his voice cracks when he laughs. And the narrator knows that it is wrong to laugh at him but he can’t help himself because the way the old man dresses is so strange. The narrator ends by saying if he lives to be the last leaf upon the tree he will be fine if the youth laugh, as he is laughing now, at the silly branch that he clings to.
There are a few similes used in the poem. They say that his cheek used to be like a rose in the snow, and they say that his nose now sits on his face like a staff. The only other poetic device used is likening the old man to the last leaf on a tree because he is the last one left where many used to be, and they liken his style and mannerism and the way they are thought of as weird by the youth to the way an old bough on a tree looks strange when it has only one leaf left on it.
The hidden meaning is that the old man is like the last leaf hanging from the bough of a tree. All the other leaves that have fallen off already are the people that he loved who have already died and been buried. The bough is old and outdated and so to outside observers it looks strange, which means that the old man is old and outdated and those around him who see him think that his mannerisms and dress are strange, so they laugh at him.
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