Preface
1
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.
2
Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very air on high
With tumult, as they thunder by,
I hardly have had time for cares
Thro’ gazing on th’ 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
Did it not tremble with the strings!
Edgar Allan Poe
Originally Published in 1829
Later versions of the poem are titled “Romance.”
