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.
But let still Silence true night-watches keep, That sacred Peace may in assurance reign, And timely Sleep, when it is time to sleep, May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain; The whiles an hundred little winged loves, Like divers-feathered doves, Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, And in the secret dark, that none reproves, Their pretty stealths shall work, and snares shall spread To filch away sweet snatches of delight, Concealed through covert night. Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will! For greedy Pleasure, careless of your toys, Thinks more upon her paradise of joys, Then what ye do, albeit good or ill! All night therefore attend your merry play, For it will soon be day: Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing; Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring.
Who is the same, which at my window peeps, Or whose is that fair face that shines so bright? Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps, But walks about high heaven all the night? O! fairest goddess, do thou not envy My love with me to spy: For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought, And for a fleece of wool, which privily The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought, His pleasures with thee wrought! Therefore to us be favourable now; And sith of women’s labours thou hast charge, And generation goodly dost enlarge, Incline thy will to effect our wishful vow, And the chaste womb inform with timely seed, That may our comfort breed: Till which we cease our hopeful hap to sing; Ne let the woods us answer, nor our echo ring.
