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• Those be rubies, Fairy-favours:

In those freckles live their favours:
I must go feek fome dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowflip's ear.
Farewel, thou lob of fpirits, I'll be gone,

Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The King doth keep his revels here to night,
Take heed, the Queen come not within his fight.
For Oberon is paffing fell and wrath,

Because that the, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, ftoll'n from an Indian King:
She never had fo fweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forefts wild;
But the per-force with-holds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flow'rs, and makes him all her joy.
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or fpangled ftar-light fheen,
But they do *fquare, that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. Or I mistake your fhape and making quite,
Or else you are that fhrewd, and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin-goodfellow. Are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villageree,
Skim milk, and fometimes labour in the quern,
And bootlefs make the breathlefs hufwife chern:
And fometime make the drink to bear no barm,
Mif-lead night-wand'rers, 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 wand'rer of the night:
I jeft to Oberon, and make him fmile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horfe beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly-foal;

And sometimes lurk I in a goffip's bowl,
quarrel or jar.

* i. c.

Pope

In very likeness of a roasted crab,

And when the drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
The wifeft aunt, telling the faddeft tale,
Sometime for three-foot ftool mistaketh me;
Then flip I from her bum, down topples fhe,
And rails or cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and fwear,
A merrier hour was never wafted there.

But make room, Fairy, here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my miftrefs: would, that he were gone!

SCENE II.

Enter Oberon King of Fairies at one door with his train, and the Queen at another with hers.

Ob.

I

LL met at moon-light, proud Titania.

Queen. What, jealous Oberon? Faires, fkip hence.

I have forfworn his bed and company.

Ob. Tarry, rash Wanton; am not I thy lord?
Queen. Then I must be thy lady; but I know,
When thou haft ftoll'n away from fairy land,
And in the fhape of Corin fate all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and verfing love
To am'rous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the fartheft steep of India?
But that, forfooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your bufkin'd miftrefs and your warrior love,
To Thefeus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and profperity.

Ob. How can't thou thus for fhame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolita ;
Knowing, I know thy love to Thefeus?

*Didft thou not lead him glimmering, through the From Periguné, whom he ravish'd;

And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

[night

Queen. These are the forgeries of jealoufy:
And never fince that middle fummer's fpring
Met we on hill, in dale, foreft, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by bushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou haft disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have fuck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made fo proud,
That they have over-borne their continents.
The ox hath therefore ftretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman loft his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere its youth attain'd a beard.
The fold ftands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine-men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.

The human mortals want their winter heried,
No night is now with hymn or carol bleft;
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air;
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this diftemperature, we see
The feafons alter; hoary-headed frofts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems chin, and icy crown,
An od'rous chaplet of sweet summer-buds
Is, as in mockery, fet. The spring, the fummer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change

Didft thou not lead him glimmering through the night The Meaning is the conducted him in the Appearance of fire through the dark Night.

Their wonted liveries; and th' amazed world,

By their inchase, now knows not which is which;
And this fame progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our diffenfion;
We are their parents and original.

Ob. Do you amend it then, it lies in you.
Why fhould Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my *henchman.

Queen. Set your heart at reft,

The fairy-land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votrefs of my order,
And, in the spiced Indian air by night,
Full often the hath goffipt by my fide;
And fat with me on Neptune's yellow fands,
Marking th' embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laught to fee the fails conceive,
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind:
Which fhe, with pretty and with fwimming gate
Follying (her womb then rich with my young fquire)
Would imitate; and fail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage rich with merchandize.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And, for her fake, I do rear up her boy;
And, for her fake, I will not part with him.
Ob. How long within this wood intend you ftay?

*Or Ufher.

Mr. Pope. + Which he with pretty and with fwimming gate Following (her womb then rich with my young Squire)

Would imitate-] Some of the ancient Editions read as above. But following what? fhe did not follow the Ship, whofe Motion fhe imitated: For that failed on the Water, fhe on the Land. If by following we are to understand imitating, it will be a mere Pleonafmimitating would imitate. From the Poet's Description of the Actions it plainly appears we should read

follying---
Would imitate.

i. e. wantoning in Sport and Gaiety.

Queen.

Queen. Perchance, 'till after Thefeus' wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round, And fee our moon-light revels, go with us; If not, fhun me, and I will spare your haunts. Ob. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Queen. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Elves, away: We fhall chide down-right, if I longer stay.

[Exeunt Queen and her train. Ob. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove,

'll I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither; thou remember'st
Since once I fat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude fea grew civil at her fong;
And certain ftars fhot madly from their spheres,
To hear the fea-maid's mufic.

Puck. I remember.

Ob. That very time I faw, but thou cou'dft not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid alarm'd: a certain aim he took

At a fair * Veftal, throned by the weft,

And loos'd his love-fhaft fmartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might fee young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chafte beams of the wat'ry moon,
And the Imperial Votress paffed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell,

It fell upon a little western flower;

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound;
And-maidens call it Love in idleness.

Fetch me that flow'r; the herb I fhew'd thee once;
The juice of it, on fleeping eye-lids laid,
Will make or man, or woman, madly doat
Upon the next live creature that it fees.

A Compliment to Queen Elizabeth.

Mr. Pope.

Fetch

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