Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Romance” (Text-05c), The Raven and Other Poems (1845), p. 84


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[page 84:]

ROMANCE.

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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 my 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.


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Notes:

None.

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[S:1 - RAOP, 1845 (fac, 1969)] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - Romance (Text-05c)