Primrose, first-born child of Ver, Merry springtime's harbinger, _With her bells dim_: Oxlips in their cradles growing, _Marigolds on death-beds blowing_, Lark-heels trim: All, dear Nature's children sweet, Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, [28:1]_Blessing their sense_: Not an _angel of the air_, Bird melodious or bird fair, Be absent hence! . . . . . [Sidenote: Dialogue in I. i. has the characteristics of Shakspere's style: is crowded, obscure, alliterative, clear and yet confus'd, has fulness and variety, originality and true poetry.] But the dialogue which follows is strikingly characteristic. It has sometimes Shakspeare's identical images and words: it has his quaint force and sententious brevity, crowding thoughts and fancies into the narrowest space, and submitting to obscurity in preference to feeble dilation: it has sentiments enunciated with reference to subordinate relations, which other writers would have expressed with less grasp of thought: it has even Shakspeare's alliteration, and one or two of his singularities in conceit: it has clearness in the images taken separately, and confusion from the prodigality with which one is poured out after another, in the heat and hurry of imagination: it has both fulness of illustration, and a variety which is drawn from the most distant sources; and it has, thrown over all, that air of originality and that character of poetry, the principle of which is often hid when their presence and effect are most quickly and instinctively perceptible. _1 Queen._ (_To Theseus._) For pity's sake, and true gentility's, Hear and respect me! _2 Queen._ (_To Hippolita._) For your mother's sake, And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair | ones, Hear and respect me! _3 Queen._ (_To Emilia._) Now for the love of him whom Jove hath marked The honour of your bed, and for the sake Of clear virginity, be advocate For us and our distresses! This good deed Shall rase you, out of the Book of Trespasses, All you are set down there.