LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,117)
  • Text Authors (19,508)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by John Donne (1572 - 1631)
Translation

Sweet, stay awhile
Language: English  after the English 
Sweet stay awhile, why [will]1 you rise?
The light you see comes from your eyes:
The day breaks not; it is my heart,
To think that [you and I]2 must part.
O stay, or else my joys must die,
And perish in their infancy.

[Dear, let me die in]3 this fair breast,
Far sweeter than the Phoenix' nest.
Love raise desire [by his]4 sweet charms
Within [this circle of thine]5 arms:
And let [thy]6 blissful kisses cherish
Mine infant joys, [that else must]7 perish.

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   H. Lawes 

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Lawes: "do"
2 Lawes: "I from you"
3 Lawes: "O let me die on"
4 Lawes: "with thy"
5 Lawes: "the centre of your"
6 Lawes: "those"
7 Lawes: "which else would"

The text shown is a variant of another text. [ View differences ]
It is based on

  • a text in English by John Donne (1572 - 1631), "Break of Day"
    • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist , "Sweet, stay awhile", c1630 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Judith Cloud (1954 - 2023), "Sweet, stay awhile" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by John Dowland (1562 - 1626), "Sweet, stay awhile" [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Henry Lawes (c1595 - 1662), "Sweet, stay awhile" [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Michael Ostrzyga (b. 1975), "Sweet, stay awhile", 2001 [ chorus and instrumental ensemble ] [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2003-10-12
Line count: 12
Word count: 91

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris