A Dream After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paolo And Francesca

A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paolo And Francesca
by John Keats

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,

When lulled Argus, baffled, swoone'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.

This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.