In days of old when Arthur filled the throne, Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown, The king of elfs, and little fairy queen, Gambolled on heaths, and danced on every green, And where the jolly troop had led the round The grass unbidden rose, and marked the ground: Nor darkling did they dance; the silver light } Of Phoebe served to guide their steps aright, } And, with their tripping pleased, prolonged the night. } Her beams they followed where at full she played, } Nor longer than she shed her horns they stayed, } From thence with airy flight to foreign lands conveyed. } Above the rest our Britain held they dear, } More solemnly they kept their sabbaths here, } And made more spacious rings, and revelled half the year. } I speak of ancient times, for now the swain, } Returning late, may pass the woods in vain, } And never hope to see the nightly train. } * * * * * * * * * * For priests with prayers and other godly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear; And where they played their merry pranks before Have sprinkled holy water on the floor; And friars that through the wealthy regions run Thick as the motes that twinkle in the sun, Resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls, And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls: This makes the fairy choirs forsake the place When once 'tis hallowed with the rites of grace. He sometimes carries his innovations further, and the splendour of his paraphrase entirely eclipses the primitive idea. Chaucer says, in the tale of the Nun's Priest, that Swevens be but vanities and japes. Men dream all day of owles and of apes, And eke of many a mase therewithall; Men dream of thinges that never be shall. Chaucer's hint, which is scarcely more than if the speaker had said in plain prose, "I have no faith in dreams, for they are wild visions which never come true," is transformed by Dryden into this exquisite passage: Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes; When monarch-reason sleeps this mimic wakes; Compounds a medley of disjointed things, A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings: Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad; Both are the reasonable soul run mad; And many monstrous forms in sleep we see, That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be. Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind; The nurse's legends are for truths received, And the man dreams but what the boy believed. Sometimes we but rehearse a former play; } The night restores our actions done by day, } As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. } Among the characteristics of the "poor parson" Chaucer mentions that