University of Virginia Library

She [Fancy] shews me swarded spots which have sustained
The velvety and leaf-light feet of fairies,
Dancing what time the night-bird most complained;
Where their Queen sat, to view their mad vagaries,
Pillowed between two globes of that white down
Which sometime turbaned the bald, monkish crown
Of Dandelion old, when youth had fled,
And all the pride of his gold-tressed head;
What nodding bell-flower was her canopy;
Where, cushioned on green moss, the King sat by;
Which of her maidens won the amorous gaze
And following of his eye, as through the maze
Of the wide dance she swam; which comely youth
Of his brave knights won the Queen's heart from truth
And her false-hearted love and lord; and where
The jealous Oberon slew, in sight of her
And his dumb trembling court, that paramour;
And where her tears fell down, a dew-like shower,
From her blue eyes, sprang the sweet violet flower.

What numerous mischiefs Puck, that arch elf, did;
How, to escape their punishment, he hid
Deep in a bud's dark nook; and how he slid
Into a brimming well of dew, and wou'd
Have drowned, but swift Ethereon, who stood
Within his call, threw in the stoutest string
Of gossamer he could, which he did cling
Safely to, and was outdrawn; what loud laughter
Followed the telling of his mad pranks after;
When the king heard them, how an acorn cup,
With blood of a choice grape filled freshly up,
Fell from his laughter-shaken hand upon a flower
White as the brow of Dian, from that hour
The Red Rose named. What errands Faïa went
That night upon: first, round the firmament,
Bringing to earth the spheres' sweet melodies,
For music to the Fay's festivities;
Then with what duteous haste, on finning pinions,
She ransacked covetous Neptune's rich dominions
For drinking pearls, searching his sparry cells
And coral grots, and all half-opened shells,
Till she had found the one which took her mind;
How she uprose from that deep sea of trouble
To its smooth surface safely, in a bubble
Made by her light breathing, though close pursued
By Triton and sleek Mermen in a multitude;
How in a dew-drop, blown to a balloon,
A voyaging she went around the moon;
And how it burst, and, like a shooting star,
Headlong she fell, and perpendicular;
Yet, 'mid a group of fairies on the ground
Lighted like snow, without or fear or wound;
Then half o'er earth, to gather glow-lights, twice;
Once to old Mab, to crave her presence; thrice
To Fairy land, on missions secret; then
To the Sun, to learn when he would rise again,
That they might have their revels timely done,
For Fairies love his queen's pale, shadowy light, or none.

In sooth, it was a curious spectacle, to see
Their coming to that spot marked out to be
The nightly stage of prankish revelry,—
A lone, deep dell, where none save their light feet
Could tread, or ever trode. There would they meet,
When vestal Cynthia turned her lamp's light gleam
To earth, and silvered o'er the silent stream;
With all that pomp, and pageantry, and show
Which blythe-heart fairies on their sports bestow.

And first, the fitful sound of herald horn
Upon the languid air came gently borne;
Anon, a many lights, small, bright, and twinkling,
Told of the coming of the Queen and King;
And shout, and chorus, and a band of shells,
And lyres by soft winds twanged, and pealing bells,
And glistening of fay arms and armour bright,
Poured on the ear, and gleamed upon the sight.
Came next, all bearing lights, a chosen troop
Of silent-stepping Fays; and then a group,
All sparkling of eye, in garb all glittering,
O'er the mossed turf came swimming, ring in ring,
With hearts as light as their small, feathery feet,
Which brushed, yet left unspilt, the dewy sweat
That hung like jewels on the flowers' sweet heads,
Sunk down in slumber on their pleasant beds.
As they swept by, with antic-tripping tread,
Her rose-leaves Autumn showered on each head,
And with her dew their tresses diamonded.
Then came a train of fairy virgin-maids;
Each held a rushy torch, through murky shades
Of wood and forest meant to guide their way,
And lend discernment of their favourite Fay:
They might have trusted to their eyes' young fires,
They were so warm and radiantly bright,
And burnt with flames fiercer than fierce desire's;
But from the glow-worm they had ta'en that light
Which made a day for them in night's despite.

Then came a harnessed yoke of mice, so white
Snow were not fair beside them; richly bedight
With glistening gems, their harness was the skin
Of a springe-strangled mole; the traces,
Like silvery hairs of age, long, fine, and bright,
And knitted strong though delicately thin,
By handy Puck were gleaned from greenwood places.
Where that most careless weaver, Gossamer,
Had hung and left his skeins. Upon the back
Of jaded mouse an elfin perked, with spur
Plucked from the angry wasp, to goad and stir
Them to their duty; and many a smack
Of a far-reaching whip (it seemed to be
A leg of the long-spinner) minutely
Dropt down on their sleek sides. How may I tell
The beauties of their car! It was a shell,
Tribute of Oberon to his Queen, when she
Was wooed by him, then young in her virginity,
And was of orient pearl; and all about it
Was spread a prism of blent hues; without it,
Was well ensculptured many a quaint device;
The rim was studded round with gems of price:
Placed on the backs of grasshoppers, the springs
Were their lithe limbs; the wheels were those rare rings
Old Venice' bridegroom weds the sea withal;
The spokes were golden pins, bright, short, and small,
Pulled from the robes of maids who in their beds
Dreamt wantonly; and o'er their crowned heads,
For canopy, a cowslip drooping hung,
And scattered fragrance round them as it swung.
Such was their state. But how may I acquaint ye
Of Oberon's feast, made up of strange, yet dainty
Dishes, of numberless small niceties!
The round and honeyed thighs of Hyblæn bees,
Strung on white cricket-bones, by twos and threes,
And slightly broiled by slow marsh-fires, were served
First to his craving kingship: had he starved
Much as some subjects do, he had not ate
More hungrily. Next he devoured three sweet,
Delicious bags that ne'er had been to hive,—
Rich interceptions, by the twilight Fays
Forced from benighted bees, who hoped to thrive
By their late-toiling and too-covetous ways;
And next the unctuous and honeyed tips
Of small flies' feeders; with the gum that drips
From the pregnant belly of the ripening plum;
And, for his bread, a sacramental crumb
That fell from holy-minded maiden's lips,
At the Virgin's altar kneeling awfully,
Praying, though mute, with upward heart and eye.
These other dainties came by fits and starts:
Limbs of grasshoppers, and the sweet red hearts
Of merry crickets; the rich, glutinous eyes
Of bats and birds, beetles and butterflies;
The unctuous feeders of sleek, slimy snails,
Gathered from bushy brakes, and verdant pales;
A miller-moth, in poet's taper singed;
The mole's small eyes, by the fay-farmers springed;
With twice-stolen eggs, first by a school-boy brood,
Then stolen from them, caught sleeping in a wood;
With bees' sweet thighs in their own honey stewed,
And served in delicate shells, a dainty jelly,
Made Puck, delighted, smooth his paunchy belly,
And longing smack his lickerish lips. And next
On fire-flies' hearts he feasted, but seemed vext
The dish was scant, and elfin-cooks were blamed;
But they well knew his anger might be tamed,
And quick as flies a spark, to cool his ire,
They serve the plumpy haunch of barn-mouse, roasted
By the few sparks of routed gipsy's fire;
With pinched bits of bread, from burning ovens
Pilfered by Puck, to punish slumberous slovens;
These in the moon-rays parched and brownly toasted,
Gave crisp employment to his pugging teeth,
And left him but short time for talk or breath.

Some fifty lordly Fays, pamper'd with pride,
And for the common crowd too dignified,
Kept all aloof; and by a mushroom canopied,
Sat in a circle to a plenteous feast
Of dainties plunder'd from an emmet's nest,
His store of winter-food: you might have thought
These stolen cates were prodigally bought,
They ate them with such pomp and stately mirth—
Much like some larger lords who batten on this earth.

Small things have their great vices; and Oberon,
Who was nice-virtuous when vice was gone,
Had his large share, though but a little elf.
He ruled his subjects better than himself,
And having reigned ten centuries, now grew old;
And with hot dalliance had waxen cold;
So, to excite his blood, and fierce inflame
Love's grosser passion, dormant long and tame,
Quaffs two fine dusts of the Iberian fly,
Pinch'd by rogue Puck from out his living thigh,
Which cause his Fayship's blood run amorously.
Of this he pours his paramour to drink,
With wanton smiles, and many a wicked wink,
And lecherous twinkle of his eyes, whose fire
Is a small flame lit up by vast desire.—
What nice Titania's drink?—a ruby drop
Of sacred wine from a golden altar-cup
Spilled by a sinner's trembling hand, at start
Of conscience; and the death-tear of a heart
That broke in penitence, a Magdalene's;
With drained drops from Venus' milky bosom,
As her last little Love she slowly weans;
The first dew-drops shed by a fresh, sweet blossom,
Bowing to white-foot May; the waking-wept
Tears of the rose, whom the traveller bee kept
Startling from sleep with his rude clamorous horn,
Which blew for entrance to her bower, ere morn,
The early morn, was scarcely up. And these,
Which freshen, but not madden, and leave no lees,
Were for her after-drink: these kept her cool,
After the night was spent, wisely the day to rule.

Dancing they had, and music rich and rare,
And instruments beautiful as eye might see:
A lyre was one, strung with the golden hair
Of Sappho, drowned in the Lesbian sea;
And drums, of halved shells and leathery wing
Of batoutstretched, kept up a thundering;
And there were pipes of reeds, small and minute;
And the shrill shrieking of a reedy flute;
And many sounds, unsweet alone, which blent,
Made a wild music, that gave sweet content
To ears and hearts tuned only to mad merriment.

Much mirth there was, which waggish Puck excited,
Playing such pranks as the gay fays delighted:
Now on a high-hung thread of gossamer
He runs along, and springs, and featly dances;
And now on back of springy grasshopper
He rides the fairy ring, and leaps and prances,
And now is thrown, and now remounts again,
'Till laughter shakes his wagship's sides to pain. [OMITTED]

So came they forth that night, such was their court,
Their feasts and dances, and light whim and sport,
Which they untired maintained; and homeward went,
Waking the welkin with their shouts of merriment.