Romance

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
   Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon thy 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.