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,
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.
So sweet the hour --- so calm the time, I feel it more than half a crime
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute, To mar the silence ev'n with lute. At rest on ocean's brilliant dies
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven, Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love:
Within the valleys dim and brown, And on the spectral mountain's crown The wearied light is lying down:
The earth, and stars, and sea, and sky Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list! --- so soft and low Thy lover's voice to night shall flow That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude, Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls --- O God above! In every deed shall mingle, love.