Edgar Allan Poe - Romance lyrics

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 chil —with a most knowing eye. Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then roll'd like tropic storms along, Where, tho' the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky. Lay bare, thro' vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general Heaven, That very blackness yet doth fling Light on the lightning's silver wing. For, being an idle boy lang syne, Who read Anacreon, and drank wine, I early found Anacreon rhymes Were almost pa**ionate sometimes— And by strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turn'd to pain— His naivete to wild desire— His wit to love—his wine to fire— And so, being young and dipt in folly I fell in love with melancholy, And used to throw my earthly rest And quiet all away in jest— I could not love except where d**h Was mingling his with Beauty's breath— Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny Were stalking between her and me. O, then the eternal Condor years So shake the very Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder'd by; I have no time for idle cares Thro' 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. But now my soul hath too much room— Gone are the glory and the gloom— The black hath mellow'd into grey, And all the fires are fading away. My draught of pa**ion hath been deep— I revell'd, and I now would sleep— And after-drunkenness of soul Succeeds the glories of the bowl— An idle longing night and day To dream my very life away. But dreams—of those who dream as I, Aspiringly, are damned, and die: Yet should I swear I mean alone, By notes so very shrilly blown, To break upon Time's monotone, While yet my vapid joy and grief Are tintless of the yellow leaf— Why not an imp the greybeard hath, Will shake his shadow in my path— And even the greybeard will o'erlook Connivingly my dreaming-book.