Brief as the lightning in the collied* night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow; By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves : When Phoebe doth behold Her silver visage in the watery glass, Love. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd 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 beguiled. As waggish boys in gamet themselves forswear, So the boy love is perjured every where. Puck. I am that merry wanderer of the night, + Sport. * Black. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, And when the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe 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 beached 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 Hath rotted ere his youth attain❜d a beard ; The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrian flock; The nine men's morris§ is filled up with mud ; *Wild Apple. Petty. Banks which contain them. § A game played by boys. And the quaint maizes in the wanton green, Thou remember'st Since once I sat on a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, That very time I saw (but thou could'st not,) *Autumn producing flowers unseasonably. † Produce, In maiden meditation, fancy-free.* Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound, A Fairy Bank. I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lipst and the nodding violet grows Quite over-canopied with lush 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 walk, and gambol in his eyes: Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,§ 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 shared, The sister's vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us,-O, and is all forgot? All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence ? We, Hermia, like two artificial|| gods, Have with our neelds created both one flower, *Exempt from love. The greater cowslip. Vigorous. Ingenious. Needles. § Gooseberries. Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem : Due but to one, and crowned with one crest. Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it, Daybreak. Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; [there, At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and 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 flowret's 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 |