WHENCE? WHITHER?

DANCING down the leaves are dropping,

Yellow-brown and crimson-red;

With each leaf a life is stopping

In the branches overhead.

Whirling down and idly drifting,

Like the clouds in sunset sky,

Changing form and color shifting,

Fast as dreams in fancy's eye.

But, despite the landscape sober,

And the chilly winds that blow,

Bare, unfoliaged October

From the summer to the snow,

Of another land I'm dreaming,

Where the flowers blossom still,

And the cliff-born brook is streaming

Past the villa on the hill.

On the beach the nets are drying,

And the lazy fishers bask,

In the drowsy sunshine lying,

Talking o'er their morning's task.

From the vines the breeze is bringing

Fragments of some old refrain;

Voices mingle with the singing,

Like the robins in the grain.

Whither is my fancy tending?

'T is a picture three years old,

That I've carelessly been blending

With the scenes that now unfold.

What is past, and what is present?

What is real, what fancy-bred?

Whence this message deep and pleasant

From my life now three years dead?