As much in height, and twice as much in length,
Out of the main rock cut by artful strength.
The two-leaved door was of the mother-pearl,
Hinged and nailed with gold. Full many a girl,
Of the sweet fairy ligne, wrought in the loom
That fitted those rich hangings clad the room:
In them was wrought the love of their great king,
His triumphs, dances, sports, and revelling;
And learned Spenser, on a little hill
Curiously wrought, lay, as he tuned his quill.
The floor could of respect complain no loss;
But, neatly covered with discoloured moss
Woven into stories, might for such a piece
Vie with the richest carpets brought from Greece.
A little mushroom, that was now grown thinner
By being one time shaven for the dinner
Of one of Spain's grave grandees, and that day
Out of his greatness' larder stol'n away
By a more nimble elf than are their wits,
Who practise truth as seldom as their spits-
This mushroom (on a frame of wax y-pight,
Wherein was wrought the strange and cruel fight
Betwixt the troublous commonwealth of flies
And the sly spider with industrious thighs)
Served for a table. Then a little elf,
If possible far lesser than itself,
Brought in the covering made of white rose leaves,
And, wrought together with the spinner's sleaves,
Met in the table's middle in right angles.
The trenchers were of little silver spangles:
The salt, the small bone of a fish's back,
Whereon in little was expressed the wrack
Of that deplorèd mouse from whence hath sprung
That furious battle Homer whilom sung
Betwixt the frogs and mice; so neatly wrought
You could not work it lesser in a thought.
Then on the table, for their bread, was put
The milk-white kernels of the hazel nut.
The cupboard, suitable to all the rest,
Was as the table with like cov'ring dressed.
The ewer and basin were, as fitting well,
A periwinkle and a cockle-shell.
The glasses, pure, and thinner than we can
See from the sea-betrothed Venetian,
Were all of ice, not made to overlast
One supper, and betwixt two cowslips cast:
A prettier fashion hath not yet been told,
So neat the glass was and so feat the mould.
A little spruce elf then, just of the set
Of the French dancer or such marionette,
Clad in a suit of rush, woven like a mat,
A monkshood flow'r then serving for a hat,
Under a cloak made of the spider's loom--
This fairy (with them held a lusty groom)
Brought in his bottles: neater were there none,
And every bottle was a cherrystone;
To each a seedpearl servèd for a screw,
And most of them were filled with early dew;
Some choicer ones, as for the king most meet,
Held mel-dew and the honeysuckle's sweet.
All things thus fitted, straightways followed in
A case of small musicians, with a din
Of little hautboys, whereon each one strives
To show his skill: they all were made of syves,
Excepting one, which puffed the player's face,
And was a chibole, serving for the bass.
Then came the service. The first dishes were:
In white broth boiled, a crammèd grasshopper;
A pismire roasted whole; five crayfish eggs;
The udder of a mouse; two hornet's legs;
Instead of olives, cleanly pickled sloes;
Then of a bat were served the pettitoes;
Three fleas in souse; a cricket from the brine;
And of a dormouse, last, a lusty chine.
His neighbours called, each one a lusty heaver;
Some steer the roller, others ply the lever;
"Heave here!" says one; another calls, "Shove thither!"
"Heave, roll, and shove!” cry all and all together;
"Look to your foot, sir, and take better heed!"
Cries a bystander; "No more haste than need;
Lift up that end there; bring it gently on;
And now thrust all at once or all is gone!
Hold there a little; soft; now use your strength!"
And with this stir the tree lies fit at length:
Just such a noise was heard when came the last
Of Oberon's second mess. One cried, "Hold fast!
Put five more of the guard to 't, of the best!
Look to your footing; stop awhile and rest.”
One would have thought, with so much strength and din, They surely would have brought Behemoth in,
That mighty ox which, as the Rabbins say, Shall feast the Jews upon the latter day. But at the last, with all this noise and cry, Ten of the guard brought in a minnow-pie. Before 1643.
A ROSE, AS FAIR AS EVER SAW THE NORTH
A rose, as fair as ever saw the North,
Grew in a little garden all alone;
A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth,
Nor fairer garden yet was never known.
The maidens danced about it morn and noon,
And learned bards of it their ditties made;
The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon
Watered the root and kissed her pretty shade.
But, well-a-day! the gard'ner careless grew;
The maids and fairies both were kept away;
And in a drought the caterpillars threw
Themselves upon the bud and every spray.
God shield the stock! if heaven send no supplies,
The fairest blossom of the garden dies.
AN EPITAPH ON MR. JOHN SMYTH
Know thou, that tread'st on learned Smyth inurned,
Man is an hour-glass that is never turned.
He is gone through; and we that stay behind
Are in the upper glass, yet unrefined.
When we are fit, with him so truly just,
We shall fall down, and sleep with him in dust.
ON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE
Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and learn'd and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name; for after days
Some kind woman born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.
RICHARD CORBET
THE FAIRIES' FAREWELL
"Farewell rewards and fairies,"
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
Lament, lament, old abbeys,
The fairies' lost command:
They did but change priests' babies,
But some have changed your land;
And all your children sprung from thence
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your demains.
At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had:
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.
Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;
But since, of late, Elizabeth
And, later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.
By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession: Their songs were Ave-Marys,
Their dances were procession. But now, alas, they all are dead, Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.
A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished sure:
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue.
O how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!
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