And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game* themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjur'd every where.

PUCK.

I am that merry wanderer of the night, I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a silly foal. And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab;† And, when she drink, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And tailor cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe; And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.

FAIRY JEALOUSY, AND THE EFFECTS OF IT. These are the forgeries of jealousy: And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, Or on the beachy margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea Contagious fogs; which falling in the land, Have every pelting river made so proud, That they have overborne their continents;§ The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn

* Sport.

† Wild apple.

§ Banks which contain them.

‡ Petty.

L

Hath rotted, ere his youth attained a beard The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrian flock; The nine men's morris* is fill'd up with mud; And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread, are undistinguishable; The human mortals want their winter here; No night is now with hymn or carol bless'd:Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound: And through this distemperature, we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; And on old Hyems' chin, an icy crown, • An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in a mockery, set: The spring, the summer, The childingt autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which.

LOVE IN IDLENESS.

Thou remember'st

Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such a dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

That very time I saw, (but thou could'st not,)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial votress passed on,
In maiden meditation fancy-free.§

* A game played by boys.

† Autumn producing flowers unseasonably. + Produce.

§ Exempt from love..

A

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,--
Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound,-
And maidens call it, love-in-idleness.

A FAIRY BANK.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips* and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with lusht woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.

ACT III.

FAIRY COURTESIES.

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewlerries,‡
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
And, for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

FEMALE FRIENDSHIP.

Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,-0, and is all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence,
We, Hermia, like two artificials gods,
Have with our neelds|| created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,

* The greater cowslip. † Vigorous. ‡ Goosberries.
§ Ingenious.

1.

Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition,

1

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem:
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 'Tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it;
Though I alone do feel the injury.

DAYBREAK.

Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and

there,

Troop home to church-yards.

ACT IV.

DEW IN FLOWERS.

And that same dew, which sometime on the buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes,
Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.

HUNTING.

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, And mark the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Hip. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once, When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding;* for, besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

HOUNDS.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn.

ACT V.

THE POWER OF IMAGINATION.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:†

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to

heav'n;

And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation, and a name.

SIMPLICITY AND DUTY.

For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing.

MODEST DUTY ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome: Trust me, sweet. * The flews are the large chaps of a hound. † Are made of mere imagination.