Pigwiggin was this fairy knight,
One wondrous gracious in the sight
Of fair Queen Mab, which day and night
He amorously observed:
Which made King Oberon suspect
His service took too good effect;
His sauciness had often checked
And could have wished him stervèd.
Pigwiggin gladly would commend
Some token to Queen Mab to send,
If sea or land him aught could lend
Were worthy of her wearing.
At length this lover doth devise
A bracelet made of emmet's eyes,
A thing he thought that she would prize,
No whit her state impairing.
And to the Queen a letter writes,
Which he most curiously indites,
Conjuring her by all the rites
Of love, she would be pleasèd
To meet him, her true servant, where
They might, without suspect or fear,
Themselves to one another clear,
And have their poor hearts easèd.
At midnight, the appointed hour;
"And for the Queen a fitting bower,"
Quoth he, "is that fair cowslip flower
On Hipcut hill that bloweth :
In all your train there's not a fay
That ever went to gather may
But she hath made it, in her way-
The tallest there that groweth."
When by Tom Thumb, a fairy page,
He sent it, and doth him engage,
By promise of a mighty wage,
It secretly to carry;
Another scorns the home-spun thread of rhymes,
Matched with the lofty feet of elder times:
Give me the numbered verse that Virgil sung, And Virgil's self shall speak the English tongue." "Manhood and garboils" shall he chaunt with chaungèd
And head-strong dactyls making music meet;
The nimble dactyl striving to out-go
The drawling spondees pacing it below;
The ling'ring spondees labouring to delay
The breathless dactyls with a sudden stay.
Whoever saw a colt, wanton and wild,
Yoked with a slow-foot ox on fallow field,
Can right areed how handsomely besets
Dull spondees with the English dactylets.
If Jove speak English in a thund'ring cloud,
"Thwick thwack" and "riff raff" roars he out aloud.
Fie on the forgèd mint that did create
New coin of words never articulate!
Time was, and that was termed the time of gold,
When the world and time were young, that now are old;
When quiet Saturn swayed the mace of lead,
And pride was yet unborn and yet unbred;
Time was that, whiles the autumn fall did last,
Our hungry sires gaped for the falling mast
Of the Dodonian oaks.
Could no unhuskèd acorn leave the tree
But there was challenge made whose it might be.
And if some nice and liquorous appetite
Desired more dainty dish of rare delight,
They scaled the storèd crab with claspèd knee,
Till they had sated their delicious eye;
Or searched the hopeful thicks of hedgy-rows,
For briery berries or haws or sourer sloes;
Or when they meant to fare the fin'st of all,
They licked oak-leaves besprint with honey-fall.
As for the thrice-three-angled beechnut shell,
Or chestnut's armèd husk and hid kernel,
No squire durst touch, the law would not afford,
Kept for the court and for the king's own board.
Their royal plate was clay or wood or stone;
The vulgar, save his hand, else had he none.
Their only cellar was the neighbour brook;
None did for better care, for better look.
Was then no plaining of the brewer's scape,
Nor greedy vintner mixt the strainèd grape.
The king's pavilion was the grassy green,
Under safe shelter of the shady treen.
Under each bank men laid their limbs along,
Not wishing any ease, not fearing wrong;
Clad with their own, as they were made of old,
Not fearing shame, not feeling any cold.
But when, by Ceres' huswif'ry and pain,
Men learned to bury the reviving grain,
And father Janus taught the new-found vine
Rise on the elm with many a friendly twine,
And base desire bade men to delven low
For needless metals, then gan mischief grow.
Then farewell fairest age, the world's best days,
Thriving in ill as it in age decays.
Then crept in pride and peevish covetise,
And men grew greedy, discordous, and nice.
Now, man, that erst hail-fellow was with beast,
Wox on to ween himself a god at least.
No aëry fowl can take so high a flight,
Though she her daring wings in clouds have dight;
Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea,
Though Thetis' self should swear her safety;
Nor fearful beast can dig his cave so low,
All could he further than earth's center go;
As that the air, the earth, or ocean
Should shield them from the gorge of greedy man.
Hath utmost Inde aught better than his own?
Then utmost Inde is near, and rife to gone.
O Nature! was the world ordained for naught
But fill man's maw and feed man's idle thought?
Thy grandsire's words savoured of thrifty leeks
Or manly garlic; but thy furnace reeks
Hot steams of wine, and can aloof descry
The drunken draughts of sweet autumnity.
They naked went, or clad in ruder hide
Or homespun russet, void of foreign pride;
But thou canst mask in garish gaudery,
To suit a fool's far-fetched livery:
A French head joined to neck Italian;
Thy thighs from Germany, and breast from Spain;
An Englishman in none, a fool in all;
Many in one, and one in several.
Then men were men; but now the greater part
Beasts are in life, and women are in heart.
Good Saturn's self, that homely emperour,
In proudest pomp was not so clad of yore
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