Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Romance” (Text-02b), Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems (1829), p. 57


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[page 57:]

PREFACE.

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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!


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Notes:

After the present printing, the poem was called “Introduction,” eventually gaining the more proper title of “Romance”.

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[S:1 - ATMP, 1829 (fac, 1933)] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - Romance (Text-02b)