Over Hill, Over Dale

from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene i

(1623, d7)

composed around 1595 (31)

OVER hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moonè's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green:

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:

I must go seek some dew-drops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Farewell thou lob of spirits: I'll be gone

Our queen and all our elves come here anon.

pale: fence orbs: rings, the reference is to so-called 'fairy rings' pensioners: the Queen's pensioners. The German traveller Paul Hentzner writes that the queen at Greenwich 'was guarded on each side by the gentlemen pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt battle-axes'. (Journey into England,1598) lob: clown