Romance, to nod and sing
With drowsy head and fold ed wing
Among the green leavesas they shake
Far down within someshadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been-most familiar bird-
Taught me my alphabet to say,
To lisp my very earliest world
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child—with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal condor years
So shake the very Haven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through
gazing on the unquiet sky;
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings,
Its down upon my spirit fling
To whil eaway—forbidden things—
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.