Animals and Nature

O! the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

The time and my intents are savage-wild, More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

The lark, the herald of the morn.

To lure this tassel-gentle back again.

You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen; Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen.

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders At our quaint spirits.

Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania some time of the night, Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab.

Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire.

Saint George, that swing’d the dragon, and e’er since Sits on his horse back at mine hostess’ door.

The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby.

That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.

The owl, night’s herald.

The lamb will never cease to follow him.

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.

By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. 2

The bisy larke, messager of day.

His palfrey was as broun as is a berye.

She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.

And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open yë, (So priketh hem nature in hit corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

Nature, the vicaire of the almyghty lorde.

Empty hills, no one in sight, only the sound of someone talking; late sunlight enters the deep wood, shining over the green moss again. 1