On a Dream by John Keats

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 that day;

But to that second circle of sad Hell,

    Where in 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.

I love the language and tempo, read it out loud if only to yourself it is magical.  To read more about him and his poetry there is a link.http://www.poets.org/poet/php/prmPID/66