A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Bless, so lovely! I wish I said this to girls.

‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily white of hue, Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier, 80 Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,

I’ll follow you; I’ll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier; Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, 95 Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.

I led them on in this distracted fear, And left sweet Pyramus translated there: When in that moment,—so it came to pass,— Titania wak’d, and straightway lov’d an ass.

The poetry is amazing. The humor is great.