=The Boy’S Dream=

OBERON TITANIA, and PUCK

A boy sleeps on the wooded bank of a small river running out upon the seashore. A night in spring.

Oberon. Well met by starlight, my Titania.

Titania. For thrice a hundred years we have not met!

Oberon. But drug’d by some mad magic have drowsed away Three centuries in a night.

Titania. The charm is broken.

Oberon. Thee in a crystal-cavern’d isle that weeps Embargo’d on the bosom of a lake, It caught in slumber mid thy maiden fays; And in a blasted, bent, and strippen willow, Pleading his bleach’d bones over a festering pool In a black forest, me; and all our train, So wont to win the air on wanton wings, Imprison’d in the caves of bears or boles Of mouldy oaks, in age-long lethargy— Half dead, but for their beating hearts, that fright The furry denizens dwelling there.

Titania. And so The stars have spill’d their silvery beams in vain, Teeming the flowers’ chalices with light, But not for us; nor have we ever heard The tree-top throstle clarioning the Spring.

Oberon. But million’d men, rid of our sooth control, Like chattering magpies in a frozen field, Or eyeless emmets pestering in the mire, Have fought for foolish gods, and furrow’d earth, And fed the sea, or sop’d the soil with blood, All about nothing.

Titania. Who strew’d the spell? Some Sage?

Oberon. Rather some fool! For fools, ’tis writ, have power To clamp the whole world in inviolate chains Whene’er they wish!

Titania. O dreadful law! But say, My love and king, what curst particular fool So persecutes us?

Oberon. First the fool who made God in his own image, and pent us up A hundred years; and then a lower lown Who taught us, all are equal; and a third, That every raff should have his rights. Between them Two centuries more they thrall’d us. Such the woe When meddling men made Heaven so and so, And Folly like a fitful gale essay’d To blow predestined ocean from his bed.

Titania. But so think I.

Oberon. Why then your creed prevails! But it is scathless: fools are always males!— So now that every sot has said his say, Wisdom and we may get again our day, To tell men if they live with love and mirth, The earth is Heav’n indeed, and Heaven earth. So, Fairies, come; and keep our old-time revel; And let those ghosts go die to haunt the devil!

Puck. Hush, master! See a mortal lying near. If he’s a fool, perchance he’ll overhear And lock us up another hundred year.

Oberon. Go, then, my gentle Puck, and see Who sleepeth there on yonder lea.

Puck. I vow, a truant boy from school, And therefore not at all a fool.

Oberon. Be careful, friend, and do not err: He may be a philosopher.

Puck. O, scarcely such a thing abhorrèd: I see indeed he has a forehead.

Oberon. Perchance he is—’tis my suspicion— A prophet or a politician.

Puck. I gather neither: for he’s young, And has not yet full-grown his tongue.

Oberon. A boy at midnight not abed, Is either fairy-fain or dead.

Puck. I take the former—for he sleeps. Three pennies in a pouch he keeps, A mouse, a beetle in a box, A candle, and some bits of rocks. What’s here? A diamond? No, alas, Only a piece—of pure glass! My lord, I vow by this I know it, Here’s not a fool, but but a poet.

Oberon. So then we’re safe. Let him sleep on, And ride from Troy to Helicon.

Titania. Once more we breathe the summer-sweeten’d air. Night, and the still stars, and the world are fair.

Oberon. Immortal; and the grumbling clouds descend, Mingle with mists upon the verge, and end.

Titania. Now wearied Winter, with her aged eyes, Sunk on a drift of last year’s dead leaves, dies;

Oberon. Earth opens, and green-spangling Spring leaps forth, Laughing his warm breath to the unfrozen north.

Titania. Now even the airs of night are hot with balm, That buds be heard uncurling through the calm;

Oberon. And o’er black banks of bryony and brier White planets blaze like beacons guttering fire.

Titania. Now mystic, warm, the rich-enrobèd Moon Foots forth the eastern meads on silvery shoon.

Oberon. The rushes in the stream she rings aglance, Like Indian maids, with anklets for the dance.

Titania. And the new-budded trees, like laughing girls, Step forth from night, attirèd in her pearls.

The MOON

Come all creatures of delight, Beauty’s brightest in the night. I am Beauty, and I bear Emeralds in my amber hair, And a crystal gemmary To adorn earth, air, and sea. I am watching Wisdom too, For, while others dream, I do; Light the world to let men know Where’s the way for them to go. I am Love, for I behold All things ever and of old; Stars with eager eyes, new-born; Blind ones wandering forlorn; Watch the evening, watch the morn, Without envy, without scorn. New things may be bright or dull; Only old things, beautiful; Ever changing, aye the same, Still I bear my orbèd flame— Embers of thick fire won From the planet-scarfèd Sun. They that utter brightness burn; Happier we who bear the urn; So, content, I follow him, Happier, lovelier, though more dim.