She is the fairies' midwife and She comes

In a shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon spokes made of long spinner's legs,

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers,

The traces, of the smallest spider's webs,

The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams,

Her whip of a cricket's bone; the lash, of film,

Her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat...

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot an empty hazel nut

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lover's brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtier's knees, that dream on court'sies straight,

O'er lawyer's fingers, who dream straight on fees,

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:.....

Sometims she gallops o'er a courtier's nose

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometimes she with a tithe-pigs tail,

Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice;

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

And then he dreams 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 frightened swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night;

And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which once untangled much misfortune bodes;

This is she...