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 beena 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 have no time for idle cares
Though gazing on the 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.