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 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.
