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

John Keats 1795 (Moorgate) – 1821 (Rome)



As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, 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 grieved a 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 kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 10, 2023

34 sec read
115

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABACDEDEFGFGHH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 602
Words 114
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. more…

All John Keats poems | John Keats Books

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