John Dowland Songs

Text Translations

Come AgainCome 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.

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.

Fine Knacks for Ladies

Fine knacks for ladies,

Cheap, choice, brave, and new,

Good penniworths but money cannot move.

I keep a faire but for the faire to view,

A beggar may be liberall 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 plaine

Sometimes in shell the orients pearls we find.

Of others take a sheaf,

Of me a grain!

Within this pack, pins,

Points, laces and gloves,

And divers toys fitting a country fair,

But my heart, wherein duty serves and loves,

Turtles and twins, courts brood, a heavenly pair.

Happy the heart that thinks

Of no removes!

Awake Sweet LoveAwake, sweet love, thou art returned, If she esteem the now aught worth,My heart, which long in absence mourned, She will not grieve thy love henceforth,

Lives now in perfect joy. Which so despair hath proved.

Let love, which never absent dies, Despair hath proved now in me,

Now live for ever in her eyes, That love will not unconstant be,

Whence came my first annoy. Though long in vain I loved.

Only herself hath seemed fair, If she at last reward thy love,

She only I could love, And all thy harms repair,

She only drove me to despair, Thy happiness will sweeter prove,

When she unkind did prove. Raised up from deep despair.

Despair did make me wish to die, And if that now thou welcome be,

That I my joys might end: When thou with her dost meet,

She only, which did make me fly, She all this while but played with thee,

My state may now amend. To make thy joys more sweet.

Come Away, Come Sweet Love

Come away, come sweet love, Come away, come sweet love,

The golden morning breaks. Do not in vain adorn

All the earth, all the air, Beautys grace that should rise,

Of love and pleasure speaks. Like to the naked morn:

Teach thine arms then to embrace, Lillies on the rivers side,

And sweet rosy lips to kiss, And fair Cyprian flowrs new blown,

And mix our souls in mutual bliss. Desire no beauties but their own.

Eyes were made for a beautys grace, Ornament is nurse of pride,

Viewing, rueing loves long pain, Pleasure, measure, loves delight:

Procured by beautys rude disdain. Haste then, sweet love, our wished flight.

Come away, come sweet love,

The golden morning wastes,

While the sun from his sphere,

His fiery arrows casts:

Making all the shadows fly,

Playing, staying in the grove,

To entertain the stealth of love.

Thither sweet love let us hie,

Flying dying, in desire,

Winged with sweet hopes and heavnly fire.