Page:A Midsummer-Nights Dream (Rackham).djvu/117



I wonder if Titania be awaked;

Then, what it was that next came in her eye,

Which she must dote on in extremity. Here comes my messenger.

How now, mad spirit

What night-rule now about this haunted grove?

My mistress with a monster is in love.

Near to her close and consecrated bower,

While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,

A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,

That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,

Were met together to rehearse a play

Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial-day.

The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,

Who Pyramus presented, in their sport

Forsook his scene and enter’d in a brake:

When I did him at this advantage take,

An ass’s nole I fixed on his head:

Anon his Thisbe must be answered,

And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,

As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,