Hence Obe on him sport to make,
Their rest when weary mortals take,
And none but only fairies wake,

Descendeth for his pleasure;
And Mab, his merry Queen, by night
Bestrides young folks that lie upright,
(In elder times the mare that hight,)
Which plagues them out of measure.
Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes,
Of little frisking elves and apes
To earth do make their wanton scapes,

As hope of pastime hastes them;
Which maids think on the hearth they see
When fires well-nigh consumèd be,
There dancing hays by two and three,
Just as their fancy casts them.
These make our girls their sluttery rue,
By pinching them both black and blue,
And put a penny in their shoe

The house for cleanly sweeping;
And in their courses make that round
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the Fairy Ground,
Of which they have the keeping.
These when a child haps to be got
Which after proves an idiot
When folk perceive it thriveth not,

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The fault therein to smother,

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In love and arms delighting:

Of one of his own Fairy crew;

Too well, he feared, his Queen that knew, His love but ill requiting.

Pigwiggin was this Fairy Knight,

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And could have wished him stervèd.

And somewhat southward tow'rds the

noon,

Whence lies a way up to the moon, And thence the Fairy can as soon

Pass to the earth below it.

The Queen, bound with love's powerful charm,

Sate with Pigwiggin arm in arm;

Her merry maids, that thought no harm,
About the room were skipping;

A humble-bee, their minstrel, played
Upon his hautboy; every maid
Fit for this revel was arrayed,
The hornpipe neatly tripping.

In comes Nymphidia, and doth cry,
'My sovereign, for your safety fly,
For there is danger but too nigh;
I posted to forewarn you:
The King hath sent Hobgoblin out,
To seek you all the fields about,
And of your safety you may doubt,
If he but once discern you.'

When, like an uproar in a town
Before them everything went down;
Some tore a ruff, and some a gown,

'Gainst one another justling;
They flew about like chaff i' th' wind;
For haste some left their masks behind;
Some could not stay their gloves to find;
There never was such bustling.

Forth ran they, by a secret way,
Into a brake that near them lay;
Yet much they doubted there to stay,
Lest Hob should hap to find them; -
He had a sharp and piercing sight,
All one to him the day and night
And therefore were resolved, by flight,
To leave this place behind them.

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That he should be her over-match,

Of which she well bethought her;
Found it must be some powerful charm,
The Queen against him that must arm,
Or surely he would do her harm,
For throughly he had sought her.

And listening if she aught could hear,
That her might hinder, or might fear;
But finding still the coast was clear;
Nor creature had descried her;
Each circumstance and having scanned,
She came thereby to understand,
Puck would be with them out of hand;
When to her charms she hied her.

And first her fern-seed doth bestow,
The kernel of the mistletoe;
And here and there as Puck should go,

With terror to affright him,

She night-shade strews to work him ill, Therewith her vervain and her dill, That hindereth witches of their will,

Of purpose to despite him.

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At last one chanced to find a nut,

In the end of which a hole was cut,

And so upon her spell doth fall,

Which lay upon a hazel root,

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There scattered by a squirrel

Which here to you repeat I shall, Not in one tittle failing.

Which out the kernel gotten had;

'By the mandrake's dreadful groans;

By the lubrican's sad moans;

By the noise of dead men's bones
In charnel-houses rattling;

By the hissing of the snake, The rustling of the fire-drake,

I charge thee thou this place forsake, Nor of Queen Mab be prattling!

'By the whirlwind's hollow sound,
By the thunder's dreadful stound,
Yells of spirits underground,

I charge thee not to fear us;
By the screech-owl's dismal note,
By the black night-raven's throat,
I charge thee, Hob, to tear thy coat

With thorns, if thou come near us!'

Her spell thus spoke, she stept aside,
And in a chink herself doth hide,
To see thereof what would betide,
For she doth only mind him:

When presently she Puck espies,

And well she marked his gloating eyes,

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Until Nymphidia told the Queen,
What she had done, what she had seen,
Who then had well near cracked her spleen
With very extreme laughter.

But leave we Hob to clamber out,
Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout,
And come again to have a bout
With Oberon yet madding:
And with Pigwiggin now distraught,
Who much was troubled in his thought,
That he so long the Queen had sought,
And through the fields was gadding,
And as he runs he still doth cry,
'King Oberon, I thee defy,
And dare thee here in arms to try,

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For my dear Lady's honour: For that she is a Queen right good, In whose defence I'll shed my blood, And that thou in this jealous mood Hast laid this slander on her.' And quickly arms him for the field, A little cockle-shell his shield, Which he could very bravely wield; Yet could it not be pierced: His spear a bent both stiff and strong, And well near of two inches long:

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The pile was of a horse-fly's tongue,

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Whose sharpness nought reversed.