University of Virginia Library

THE LEAF

LEOPARDI

Torn from your parent bough,
Poor leaf all withered now,
Where go you?” “I cannot tell.
Storm-stricken is the oak-tree
Where I grew, whence I fell.
Changeful continually,
The zephyr and hurricane
Since that day bid me flee
From deepest woods to the lea,
From highest hills to the plain.
Where the wind carries me
I go without fear or grief:
I go whither each one goes,—
Thither the leaf of the rose
And thither the laurel-leaf.”