A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode of “Paolo and Francesca” + 

As Hermes once rook 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 in 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 grieved 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. + 