"Romance" by Edgar Allan Poe

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The parakeet picture used was found via a public domain image search. If you recognize it and know it to not be public domain, please let me know and I will remove it.
The condor picture was taken by Pedro Szekely and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en).
The mockingbird picture used in the cover was taken by US Fish and Wildlife Service employee (and thus is public domain) Ryan Hagerty.

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 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.