The Tempest is a finer play than the Midsummer Night's Dream, which
has sometimes been compared with it; but it is not so fine a poem.
There are a greater number of beautiful passages in the latter. Two
of the most striking in The Tempest are spoken by Prospero. The one
is that admirable one when the vision which he has conjured up
disappears, beginning, 'The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous
palaces,' &c., which has so often been quoted that every schoolboy
knows it by heart; the other is that which Prospero makes in
abjuring his art:
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid
(Weak masters tho' ye be) I have be-dimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I giv'n fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art.
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