TITANIA

      These are the forgeries of jealousy:

      And never, since the middle summer's spring,

      Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,

      By pavèd fountain, or by rushy brook,

      Or on the beachèd margent of the sea,

      To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,

      But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.

      Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

      As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea

      Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,

      Hath every pelting river made so proud

      That they have overborne their continents:

      The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,

      The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn

      Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard:

      The fold stands empty in the drownèd field,

      And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;

      The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;

      And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,

      For lack of tread, are undistinguishable:

      The human mortals want their winter here;

      No night is now with hymn or carol blest —

      Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,

      Pale in her anger, washes all the air,

      That rheumatic diseases do abound:

      And thorough this distemperature we see

      The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts

      Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;

      And on old Hyem's thin and icy crown

      An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

      Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,

      The childing autumn, angry winter, change

      Their wonted liveries; and the maz'd world,

      By their increase, now knows not which is which:

      And this same progeny of evils comes

      From our debate, from our dissension:

      We are their parents and original.