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.
