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Text: Edgar Allan Poe, "Romance" (D), Saturday Museum (Philadelphia), March 4, 1843, p. 1, col. 5






[page 1, column 5, continued:]

[[. . . .]] Again, "But the grandest and sweetest of all is the following," which we quote, with his own [[John Neal's]] italics.

ROMANCE, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green-leaves, as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake
,
To me a painted paroquet
    Hath been — a most familiar bird —   
Taught me my alphabet to say —
    To lisp my very earliest word,
While in the wild-wood I did lie,
A child — with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal Condor years
    So shake the very Heavens on high
    With tumult, as they thunder by,
I scarcely have had time for cares
    Through gazing on the unquiet sky!
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings —
That little hour, with lyre and rhyme,
    To while away
(forbidden things! )
My heart would feel to be a crime,
    Unless it trembled with the strings.

    In closing this review, Mr. Neal makes this remarkable prophecy: -- "Our author, if he be just to his peculiar gift, (for it is a gifet here,) will be distinguished among the most distinguished."
[[. . . .]]









Notes:

This poem is quoted as part of a biographical article on Poe by his friend, Henry Beck Hirst. The article is full of factual errors, likely attributable to Poe himself.







 
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