A Dream of the Unknown
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1820

I dream'd that, as I wander'd by the way
      Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
     And gentle odours led my steps astray,
      Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring
     Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
      Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
     Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
     But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

     There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
      Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,
     The constellated flower that never sets;
      Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
     The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
     Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
     When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

     And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
      Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd May,
     And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
      Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day;
     And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
      With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
     And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold,
     Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.

     And nearer to the rivers trembling edge
      There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,
     And starry river-buds among the sedge,
      And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
     Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
      With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
     And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
     As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

     Methought that of these visionary flowers
      I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
     That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
      Were mingled or opposed, the like array
     Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours
      Within my hand;--and then, elate and gay,
     I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come
     That I might there present it--O! to Whom?