QUEEN MAB
Satyr
This is Mab, the mistress fairy,
That doth nightly rob the dairy,
And can hunt or help the churning
As she please without discerning.
. . . . . .
She that pinches country wenches
If they rub not clean their benches,
And with sharper nails remembers
When they rake not up their embers;
But if so they chance to feast her,
In a shoe she drops a tester.
. . . . . .
This is she that empties cradles,
Takes out children, puts in ladles;
Trains forth midwives in their slumber,
With a sieve the holes to number,
And then leads them from her boroughs
Home through ponds and water-furrows.
. . . . . .
She can start our franklins' daughters,
In her sleep, with shrieks and laughters,
And on sweet St. Anna's night
Feed them with a promised sight—
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers.
BEN JONSON, masque of A Satyr (1603).
A Proper New Ballad, intituled