Verbal Expression

by Edgar Allan Poe
  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
  Though 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.