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.