Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,

Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice:

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes,

And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very

Mab

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incensebearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Infolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demonlover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like re-bounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred

river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless

ocean: