Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Romance” (Text-05a), Herring copy of Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems (1829), with manuscript changes, 1845, p. 57


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[page 57, unnumbered:]

Romance.

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1

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.

2

Of late, eternal Condor years

So shake the Heavens on high

With tumult, as they thunder by,

I have no time for idle cares

Thro' gazing on th’ unquiet sky.

And, when an hour with calmer wings

Its down upon my spirit flings —

That little time with lyre and rhyme

To while away — forbidden things!

My heart would feel to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the strings!

 


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Notes:

This version presents the text with all of Poe's indicated changes having been made. For a detailed analysis of the changes made in this version, see the study text.

 

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[S:1 - ATMPEH, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - Romance (Text-05a)