The Poet's Dream-by P.B. Shelley

The Poet's Dream 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

On a poet's lips I slept

Dreaming like a love adept

In the sound his breathing kept;

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,

But feeds on the aerial kisses,

Of shapes that haunt thoughts wildernesses. 

He will watch from dawn to gloom

The lake reflected sun illume

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom

Nor heed nor see, what things they be;

But from these create he can

Forms more real than living man,

Nurslings of immortality!

One of these awakened me,

And I sped to succour thee.

Image of painting by Jozef Israëls [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.