If the world was run by dreamers what a great world this would be
For they give much more than schemers & they live for you and me
And I’ll tell you all a story of a lady and a leaf
It’s a tale of death & glory and how art once conquered grief
In a Greenwich Village studio in 1895
We can see a lady dying while she’s trying to survive
She has come from California on a zephyr’s gentle flight
Now she’s dying of pneumonia and has little strength to fight
Through a very large Dutch window-pane she sees a dying vine
It is clinging to a bare brick wall in depths of winter time
As the autumn leaves keep falling in the wild-wind’s pruning squalls
Well she heaves a sigh and she says she’ll die when the last leaf falls
Chorus:
When the last leaf falls - when the last leaf falls
Oh my hopes will die and my soul will fly
When the last leaf falls
In the room below our lady fair O. Henry lives his life
He is dreaming of the masterpiece he’ll paint with brush & knife
When he hears the strange prediction of the lady and the leaf
Well the muse stirs his conviction that his art can conquer grief
As the lady wakes by morning light a sight relieves her pain
For she sees a leaf survive the night - the last leaf to remain
And she thinks it is a masterpiece and knows she won’t decline
And she whispers, “now my soul’s at peace - I’ll live - that is the sign”
As the lady lived O. Henry died that night brought him release
And he died with brushes by his side - but left his masterpiece
For the leaf that graced the lady’s sight - he’d painted on a wall
Through a winter’s night by a lantern light - a leaf that would not fall
Ending:
I will end this tale I now here tell as Aesop might have done
And the moral is to fight like hell until your race is run
When she painted the Bay of Naples the lady’s dream came true
And if you believe in fables Greenwich Village welcomes you
