Queen of the shadowy clime! Thou of the fairy-spell and wondrous lay: Sweet Romance! breathe upon my way, Not with the breath of this degenerate time, But of that age when life was summer play, When Nature wore a verdurous hue, And Earth kept holiday; When on the ground Chaldæan shepherds lay, Gazing all night, with calm, creative view, Into the overhanging blue, And found, amid the many-twinkling stars, Warriors and maidens fair, Heroes of marvellous deeds and direful wars, Serpents and flaming hair, The Dragon and the Bear, A silvery Venus and a lurid Mars. II. Come at thy lover’s call, Thou, that, with embraces kind, Throwing thy tendrils round the lives of all, Something in all to beautify dost find! So thine own ivy, on the Gothic wall, Or pendent from the arms Of gnarléd oaks, where’er its clusters fall, Clings to adorn and adds perennial charms. And therefore, Romance, would I greet Thee by the fairest of fair names, Calling thee debonair and sweet; For sweet thou art—inspiring Manhood’s dreams, When all aweary of the actual life; And sweet thy influence seems To Woman, shrinking from the strife, The sordid tumult of the wrangling mart. But doubly sweet thou art, Leading the tender child by gentle streams, Among the lilies of our flowery Youth; Filling his all-believing heart With thoughts that glorify the common truth; Building before him, in the lustrous air, Ethereal palaces and castles fair. III. With such mild innocence the Earth Received thy blessings at her birth; And in the pastoral days of yore, To Man’s enchanted gaze, Nature was fair—O, how much more Than in our wiser days! Then deities of sylvan form, While yet the hearts of men were young and warm, Like shepherds wandered through the arching groves, Or sang aloud, the listening flocks among, Sweet legends of their loves; Then Cupid and fair Psyche breathed their vows,— He with the feathered darts and bow unstrung, And garlands on his brows; She folding gently to her bosom doves Snow-white, forever, as their mistress, young; And, as they sighed together, peerless Joy Enwreathed the maiden and the raptured boy! IV. Yes! on romantic pilgrimage, To the calm piety of Nature’s shrine, Through summer-paths, thou ledst our human-kind, With influence divine. In that orient, elden age, Ere man had learned to wage Dispassionate war against his natural mind, Thy voice of mystery, Reading aloud the Earth’s extended page, Bade human aspirations find In the cool fountain and the forest-tree A sentient imagery; The flowing river and the murmuring wind, The land—the sea— Were all informed by thee! V.