On A Dream / Keats, John

                                      1816
                                   ON A DREAM
                                 by John Keats

        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.

                        THE END
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