Now cease, ye damsels, your delights forepast; Enough it is that all the day was yours: Now day is done, and night is nighing fast, Now bring the Bride into the bridal bowers. The night is come; now soon her disarray, And in her bed her lay; Lay her in lilies and in violets, And silken curtains over her display, And odoured sheets, and arras coverlets. Behold how goodly my fair love does lie, In proud humility! Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass, ’Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was, With bathing in the Acidalian brook. Now it is night, ye damsels may be gone, And leave my love alone, And leave likewise your former lay to sing: The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring. Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected, That long day’s labour dost at last defray, And all my cares, which cruel Love collected, Hast summed in one, and cancelled for aye: Spread thy broad wing over my love and me, That no man may us see; And in thy sable mantle us enwrap, From fear of peril and foul horror free. Let no false treason seek us to entrap, Nor any dread disquiet once annoy The safety of our joy; But let the night be calm, and quietsome, Without tempestuous storms or sad affray: Like as when Jove with fair Alcmena lay, When he begot the great Tirynthian groom: Or like as when he with thy self did lie And begot Majesty. And let the maids and young men cease to sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring. Let no lamenting cries nor doleful tears Be heard all night within, nor yet without; Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt. Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden sad affrights; Ne let house-fires, nor lightning’s helpless harms, Ne let the Pouke, nor other evil sprights, Ne let mischievous witches with their charms, Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not: Let not the shriek-owl nor the stork be heard, Nor the night raven, that still deadly yells; Nor damned ghosts, called up with mighty spells, Nor grisly vultures, make us once afeard: Ne let the unpleasant choir of frogs still croaking Make us to wish their choking! Let none of these their dreary accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring.