Queen Mab.
By William Shakespeare.
[From "A Midsummer Night's Dream."]
O, then I see, Queen Mab hath been with you,
She is the fairies' midwife: and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
And in this state she gallops night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love.
