John Dowland Songs

Come Again, Sweet Love doth Now Invite

Come again, sweet love doth now invite.
Thy graces that refrain, to do me due delight.
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,
with thee again in sweetest sympathy.   

Come again, that I may cease to mourn.
Through thy unkind disdain, for now left and forlorn.
I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die,
in deadly pain and endless misery.

All the day, the sun that lends me shine,
By frowns do cause me pine, and feeds me with delay.
Her smiles, my springs, that makes, my joys, to grow,
her frowns the winters of my woe.

All the night, my sleeps are full of dreams,
My eyes are full of streams, my heart takes no delight.
To see, the fruits, and joys, that some, do find,
and mark the storms are me assigned.   

Out alas, my faith is ever true.
Yet will she never rue, nor yield me any grace.
Her eyes, of fire, her heart, of flint, is made,
whom tears nor truth may once invade.   

Gentle love, draw forth thy wounding dart.
Thou canst not pierce her heart, for I that do approve.
By sighs, and tears, more hot, than are, thy shafts,
did tempt while she for triumph laughs.

If my Complaints

If my complaints could passions move,
or make love see wherein I suffer wrong.
My passions were enough to prove,
that my despair had governed me too long.   

Oh love I live and die in thee,
thy grief in my deep sighs still speaks.
Thy wounds do freshly bleed in me,
my heart for thy unkindness breaks.   

Yet thou dost hope when I despair,
and when I hope thou makst me hope in vain.
Thou sayest thou canst my harms repair,
yet for redress thou letst me still complain.   

Can love be rich and yet I want?
Is love my judge and yet am I condemned?
Thou plenty hast yet me dost scant,
thou made a god and yet thy power contemned.   

That I do live it is thy power,
that I desire it is thy worth.
If love doth make men’s lives to sour,
let me not love, nor live henceforth.   

Die shall my hopes but not my faith,
that you that of my fall may hearers be.
May hear despair which truly saith,
I was more true to love than love to me.

Fine Knacks for Ladies

Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave, and new.
Good penny’s worth, but money cannot move.
I keep a faier, but for the fair to view.
A beggar may be liberal of love.   

Though all my wares be trash,
the heart is true!

Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again.
My trifles come as treasures from my mind.
It is a precious jewel to be plain.
Sometimes in shell the orient’s pearls we find.   

Of others take a sheaf,
of me a grain!   

Within this pack, pins, points, laces, and gloves.
And diver’s toys fitting a country fair.
But in my heart where duty serves and loves,
turtles and twins courts brood a heavenly pair.   

Happy the heart that thinks,
of no removes!

Weep You No More, Sad Fountains

Weep you no more, sad fountains,
what needs you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains,
heaven’s sun doth gently waste.   

But my sun’s heavenly eyes,
view not your weeping.
That now lies sleeping,
that now lies sleeping,
softly, softly, now softly lies sleeping.   

Sleep is a reconciling.
A rest that peace begets.
Doth not the sun rise smiling,
when ever at evening he sets?   

Rest you then, rest sad eyes.
Melt not in weeping.
While she lies sleeping,
while she lies sleeping,
softly, softly, now softly lies sleeping.