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Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lende me leave to come unto my Love?
How slowly do the houres theyr numbers spend? 280
How slowly does sad Time his feathers move?
Hast thee, O fayrest planet, to thy home,
Within the Westerne fome:
Thy tyred steedes long since have need of rest.
Long though it be, at last I see it gloome, 285
And the bright evening-star with golden creast
Appeare out of the East.
Fayre childe of beauty! glorious lampe of love!
That all the host of heaven in rankes doost lead,
And guidest lovers through the nights sad dread, 290
How chearefully thou lookest from above,
And seemst to laugh atweene thy twinkling light,
As ioying in the sight
Of these glad many, which for ioy do sing, 294
That all the woods them answer, and their eccho ring!

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.