To Romance
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
(From Hours of Idleness - 1807)
1
- Parent of golden dreams, Romance!
- Auspicious Queen of childish joys,
- Who leadst along, in airy dance,
- Thy votive train of girls and boys;
- At length, in spells no longer bound,
- I break the fetters of my youth;
- No more I tread thy mystic round,
- But leave thy realms for those of Truth.
2
- And yet tis hard to quit the dreams
- Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
- Where every nymph a goddess seems,
- Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
- While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
- And all assume a varied hue;
- When Virgins seem no longer vain,
- And even Womans smiles are true.
3
- And must we own thee, but a name,
- And from thy hall of clouds descend?
- Nor find a Sylph in every dame,
- A Pylades in every friend?
- But leave, at once, thy realms of air
- To mingling bands of fairy elves;
- Confess that womans false as fair,
- And friends have feeling forthemselves?
4
- With shame, I own, Ive felt thy sway;
- Repentant, now thy reign is oer;
- No more thy precepts I obey,
- No more on fancied pinions soar;
- Fond fool! to love a sparkling eye,
- And think that eye to truth was dear;
- To trust a passing wantons sigh,
- And melt beneath a wantons tear!
5
- Romance! disgusted with deceit,
- Far from thy motley court I fly,
- Where Affectation holds her seat,
- And sickly Sensibility;
- Whose silly tears can never flow
- For any pangs excepting thine;
- Who turns aside from real woe,
- To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine.
6
- Now join with sable Sympathy,
- With cypress crownd, arrayd in weeds,
- Who heaves with thee her simple sigh,
- Whose breast for every bosom bleeds;
- And call thy sylvan female choir,
- To mourn a Swain for ever gone,
- Who once could glow with equal fire,
- But bends not now before thy throne.
7
- Ye genial Nymphs, whose ready tears
- On all occasions swiftly flow;
- Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears,
- With fancied flames and phrenzy glow
- Say, will you mourn my absent name,
- Apostate from your gentle train
- An infant Bard, at least, may claim
- From you a sympathetic strain.
8
- Adieu, fond race! a long adieu!
- The hour of fate is hovering nigh;
- Een now the gulf appears in view,
- Where unlamented you must lie:
- Oblivions blackening lake is seen,
- Convulsd by gales you cannot weather,
- Where you, and eke your gentle queen,
- Alas! must perish altogether.
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