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LXXXVI.

“The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest,
That all the summer, with a tuneful wing,
Makes merry chirpings in its grassy nest,
Inspirited with dew to leap and sing:–
So let us also live, eternal King!
Partakers of the green and pleasant earth:–
Pity it is to slay the meanest thing,
That, like a mote, shines in the smile of mirth:–
Enough there is of joy’s decrease and dearth!”

LXXXVII.

“Enough of pleasure, and delight, and beauty,
Perish’d and gone, and hasting to decay;–
Enough to sadden even thee, whose duty
Or spite it is to havoc and to slay:
Too many a lovely race razed quite away,
Hath left large gaps in life and human loving;–
Here then begin thy cruel war to stay,
And spare fresh sighs, and tears, and groans, reproving
Thy desolating hand for our removing.”

LXXXVIII.

Now here I heard a shrill and sudden cry,
And, looking up, I saw the antic Puck
Grappling with Time, who clutch’d him like a fly,
Victim of his own sport,–the jester’s luck!
He, whilst his fellows grieved, poor wight, had stuck
His freakish gauds upon the Ancient’s brow,
And now his ear, and now his beard, would pluck;
Whereas the angry churl had snatched him now,
Crying, “Thou impish mischief, who art thou?”

LXXXIX.

“Alas!” quoth Puck, “a little random elf,
Born in the sport of nature, like a weed,
For simple sweet enjoyment of myself,
But for no other purpose, worth, or need;
And yet withal of a most happy breed;
And there is Robin Goodfellow besides,
My partner dear in many a prankish deed
To make dame Laughter hold her jolly sides,
Like merry mummers twain on holy tides.”

XC.

“‘Tis we that bob the angler’s idle cork,
Till e’en the patient man breathes half a curse;
We steal the morsel from the gossip’s fork,
And curdling looks with secret straws disperse,
Or stop the sneezing chanter at mid verse:
And when an infant’s beauty prospers ill,
We change, some mothers say, the child at nurse:
But any graver purpose to fulfil,
We have not wit enough, and scarce the will.”

XCI.

“We never let the canker melancholy
To gather on our faces like a rust,
But glass our features with some change of folly,
Taking life’s fabled miseries on trust,
But only sorrowing when sorrow must:
We ruminate no sage’s solemn cud,
But own ourselves a pinch of lively dust
To frisk upon a wind,–whereas the flood
Of tears would turn us into heavy mud.”

XCII.

“Beshrew those sad interpreters of nature,
Who gloze her lively universal law,
As if she had not form’d our cheerful feature
To be so tickled with the slightest straw!
So let them vex their mumbling mouths, and draw
The corners downward, like a wat’ry moon,
And deal in gusty sighs and rainy flaw–
We will not woo foul weather all too soon,
Or nurse November on the lap of June.”

XCIII.

“For ours are winging sprites, like any bird,
That shun all stagnant settlements of grief;
And even in our rest our hearts are stirr’d,
Like insects settled on a dancing leaf:–
This is our small philosophy in brief,
Which thus to teach hath set me all agape:
But dost thou relish it? O hoary chief!
Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape,
And I will show thee many a pleasant scrape.”

XCIV.

Then Saturn thus:–shaking his crooked blade
O’erhead, which made aloft a lightning flash
In all the fairies’ eyes, dismally fray’d!
His ensuing voice came like the thunder crash–
Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash–
“Thou feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing!
Whom nought can frighten, sadden, or abash,–
To hope my solemn countenance to wring
To idiot smiles!–but I will prune thy wing!”