Note 34 — STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD.
Reading edition
"Pity it was to hear the Elfins' wail Rise up in concert from their mingled dread, Pity it was to see them all so pale Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed. But Puck was seated on a spider's thread That hung between two branches of a brier, And 'gan to swing and gambol, heels o'er head, Like any Southwark tumbler on a wire, For him no present grief could long inspire." Plea of the Midsummer Fairies.