On A Dream

    As Hermes once took to his feathers light
    When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept,
    So on a Delphic reed my idle spright
    So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft
    The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes,
    And, seeing it asleep, so fled away:
    Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
    Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev'd a day;
    But to that second circle of sad hell,
    Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
    Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
    Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
    Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form
    I floated with, about that melancholy storm.