Now ceasse, ye damsels, your delights fore-past;
Enough it is that all the day was youres: 
Now day is doen, and night is nighing fast;
Now bring the bryde into the brydall bowres. 
The night is come; now soon her disaray, 300
And in her bed her lay;
Lay her in lillies and in violets,
And silken curteins over her display,
And odourd sheets, and Arras coverlets. 
Behold how goodly my faire Love does ly, 305
In proud humility! 
Like unto Maia, when as Iove her took
In Tempe, lying on the flowry gras,
Twixt sleepe and wake, after she weary was
With bathing in the Acidalian brooke. 310
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 eccho ring.

Now welcome, Night! thou night so long expected,
That long daies labour doest at last defray, 316
And all my cares, which cruell Love collected,
Hast sumd in one, and cancelled for aye. 
Spread thy broad wing over my Love and me,
That no man may us see; 320
And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,
From feare of perrill and foule horror free. 
Let no false treason seeke us to entrap,
Nor any dread disquiet once annoy
The safety of our ioy; 325
But let the night be calme and quietsome,
Without tempestuous storms or sad afray;
Lyke as when Iove with fayre Alemena lay,
When he begot the great Tirynthian groome;
Or lyke as when he with thy selfe did lie, 330
And begot Maiesty: 
And let the mayds and yongmen cease to sing;
Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring.

Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares,
Be heard all night within, nor yet without:  335
Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden feares,
Breake gentle sleepe with misconceived dout. 
Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadful sights,
Make sudden sad affrights: 
No let house-fyres, nor lightnings helpless harmes, 340
Ne let the Pouke, nor other evill sprights,
Ne let mischievous witches with theyr charmes,
Ne let hob-goblins, names whose sence we see not,
Fray us with things that be not: 
Let not the shriech-owle, nor the storke, be heard, 345
Nor the night-raven, that still deadly yels,
Nor damned ghosts, cald up with mighty spels,
Nor griesly vultures, make us once affeard: 
Ne let th’unpleasant quyre of frogs still croking
Make us to wish theyr choking. 350
Let none of these theyr drery accents sing;
Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring.
  [Ver. 341.—­The Pouke (Puck is a generic term, signifying fiend, or
  mischievous imp) is Robin Goodfellow.  C.]