Classic Poem

“Y OU have come back,” they say to me,
The people of the old, old town.
In speech I with their speech agree,
But doubts have I that will not down.

For more and more to me it seems
That both the village and its folk,
Whom I so oft have seen in dreams
(Have seen, then lingeringly awoke)—

Have but returned, dream-wise, again,
And as a vision will go by.
So to make answer I am fain,
“'Tis you who have come back, not I.”