A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and Francesca

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and sleptSo on a Delphic reed, my idle sprightSo play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereftThe 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 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flawOf rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tellTheir sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the formI floated with, about that melancholy storm.