Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves. What hath night to do with sleep? Night hath better sweets to prove, Venus now wakes, and wakens Love. Come let us our rites begih, 'Tis only day-light that makes sin, Which these dun shades will ne'er report. Dark-veil'd Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame, That ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon womb Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom, 125 130 Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend 135 Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end Of all thy dues be done, and none left out Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice Morn on the Indian steep From her cabin'd loop-hole peep, And to the tell-tale Sun descry Our conceal'd solemnity. Come, knit hands, and beat the ground In a light fantastic round. The Measure. 140 Break off, break off, I feel the different pace 145 Of some chaste footing near about this ground. Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and trees; Our number may affright: some virgin sure (For so I can distinguish by mine art) Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms, 150 Be well stock'd with as fair a herd as grazed My dazzling spells into the spungy air, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, 155 And give it false presentments, lest the place Which must not be, for that 's against my course; I under fair pretence of friendly ends, 120. Cotytto; the goddess of licentious pleasures. 41. Tell-tale; discovering the secrets of the night. 160 And well-placed words of glozing courtesy And hug him into snares. When once her eye I shall appear some harmless villager And hearken, if I may, her business here. The Lady enters. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe 165 170 When for their teeming flocks, and granges full, 175 In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the Gods amiss. I should be loath To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence 180 185 Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190 In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars, That Nature hung in Heav'n, and fill'd their lamps With everlasting oil, to give due light 181. Originally, In the blind alleys of this arched wood. |