| Romance, a play boy who is born each spring
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| To teach the nightingale to sing
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| Romance, a legend on an old brocade,
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| A prince who tells a country maid: «I love you».
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| Now where this whimsy comes from, I don’t know;
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| For when it comes it’s just about to go.
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| Romance, a flower that will bloom awhile
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| With sunshine from a lover’s smile,
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| That lover’s tears bedew! |
| Ah!
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| Yet, when I seek this beauty,
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| Flower of youth’s first dawning,
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| I find a prosy work-a-day world
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| Stretching and yawning!
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| Love is locked up in cages,
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| Kept for a poet’s pages;
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| Life and adventure
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| Don’t seem to be paying attention to me!
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| And so I dream of fair Romance
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| And let my fancies weave pretty stories.
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| And tho' I know they are not so,
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| I like to go wand’ring amid their wistful glories.
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| My princes become what I mold them,
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| And they stay for the breath of a sigh!
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| I open my arms to enfold them,
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| And they’re gone like a breeze rushing by.
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| Ah, this is a humdrum world,
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| But when I dream I set it dancing.
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| When life is gray, I have a way to keep it gay,
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| Passing the time of day with love. |