From “The Vision of Delight”
BREAK, Fantasy, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings,
Now all thy figures are allowed,
And various shapes of things;
Create of airy forms a stream,
It must have blood, and naught of phlegm;
And though it be a waking dream,
Yet let it like an odor rise
To all the senses...
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IN melancholic fancy,
Out of myself,
In the vulcan dancy,
All the world surveying,
Nowhere staying,
Just like a fairy elf;
Out o’er the tops of highest mountains skipping,
Out o’er the hills, the trees and valleys tripping,
Out o’er the ocean seas, without an oar or shipping.
Hallo, my fancy,... -
The Vale of Tempe had in vain been fair,
Green Ida never deemed the nurse of Jove;
Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,
Had idly murmured to the idle air;
The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair
In Delphi’s cell, and old Trophonius’ cave,
And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave
Had never blended with the sweet despair
Of... -
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let wingèd Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind’s cage-door,
She ’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer’s joys are spoilt... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act V. Sc. 1.
THE LUNATIC, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to... -
From “Romeo and Juliet,” Act I. Sc. 4.
O, THEN, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife; and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The... -
Shapcot! to thee the Fairy State
I with discretion dedicate:
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious and unfamiliar,
Take first the feast; these dishes gone,
We’ll see the Fairy-court anon.
A little mushroom-table spread,
After short prayers, they set on bread,
A moon-parched grain of purest wheat,
With some small... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 1.
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... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 1.
OBERON.—My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember’st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 2.
Enter TITANIA, with her train.TITANIA.—Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;—
Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some war with rear-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl,...