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 Heaven 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.