• You meaner beauties of the night,
    That poorly satisfy our eyes
    More by your number than your light,
    You common people of the skies;
    What are you when the moon shall rise?

    You curious chanters of the wood,
    That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
    Thinking your passions understood
    By your weak accents; what 's your praise...

  • 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...