Puck and the Fairy

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fairy. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be:

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favors,

In those freckles live their savors:

I must go seek some dew-drops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone;

Our queen and all our elves come here anon.

Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night:

Take heed the queen come not within his sight;

For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,

Because that she, as her attendant, hath

A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;

She never had so sweet a changeling:

And jealous Oberon would have the child

Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;

But she perforce withholds the loved boy,

Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:

And now they never meet in grove or green,

By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,

But they do square, that all their elves for fear

Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

Fairy. Either I mistake your shape and making quite

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite

Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he

That frights the maidens of the villagery;

Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern,

And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;

And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm;

Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?

Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,

You do their work, and they shall have good-luck:

Are not you he?

Puck.                         Thou speak'st aright:

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 filly foal:

And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,

In very likeness of a roasted crab;

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob

And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.

The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,

Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;

Then slip I from her, when down topples she,

And "tailor" cries, and falls into a cough;

And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh

And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear

A merrier horn was never wasted there.

But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.

Fairy. And here my mistress.—Would that he were gone!

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 1.