These when a child haps to be got
Which after proves an idiot
When folk perceive it thriveth not,
The fault therein to smother,
Some silly, doting, brainless calf
That understands things by the half,
Say that the Fairy left this oaf
And took away the other.
But listen, and I shall you tell
A chance in Faery that befell,
Which certainly may please some well,
In love and arms delighting,
Of Oberon that jealous grew
Of one of his own Fairy crew,
Too well, he feared, his Queen that knew,
His love but ill requiting.
Pigwiggin was this Fairy Knight,
One wondrous gracious in the sight
Of fair Queen Mab, which day and night
He amorously observéd;
Which made King Oberon suspect
His service took too good effect,
His sauciness had often checkt,
And could have wished him stervéd.
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 emmets’ 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 pleaséd
To meet him, her true servant, where
They might, without suspect or fear,
Themselves to one another clear
And have their poor hearts easéd.
At midnight, the appointed hour;
“And for the Queen a fitting bower,”
Quoth he, “is that fair cowslip flower
On Hient Hill [100] 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;
Which done, the Queen her maids doth call,
And bids them to be ready all:
She would go see her summer hall,
She could no longer tarry.
Her chariot ready straight is made,
Each thing therein is fitting laid,
That she by nothing might be stayed,
For nought must be her letting;
Four nimble gnats the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamere,
Fly Cranion the charioteer
Upon the coach-box getting.
Her chariot of a snail’s fine shell,
Which for the colours did excel,
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning;
The seat the soft wool of the bee,
The cover, gallantly to see,
The wing of a pied butterfly;
I trow ’twas simple trimming.
The wheels composed of cricket’s bones,
And daintily made for the nonce,
For fear of rattling on the stones
With thistle-down they shod it;
For all her maidens much did fear
If Oberon had chanced to hear
That Mab his Queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.