Ro manc e
by Edgar Alan Poe

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.