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Four Elizabethan Songs

Song Cycle by Vivian Fine (1913 - 2000)

1. Daybreak
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Stay, O sweet, and do not rise ;
The light, that shines comes from thine eyes ;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
  Stay, or else my joys will die,
  And perish in their infancy.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by John Donne (1572 - 1631), "Break of Day"

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Spring's welcome
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
What bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O 'tis the ravish'd nightingale.
Jug, jug, jug, tereu! she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.
Brave prick-song! Who is't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at heaven's gate she clasps her wings, 
The morn not waking till she sings.
Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat 
Poor robin redbreast tunes his note:
Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing
Cuckoo! to welcome in the spring!
Cuckoo! to welcome in the spring!

Text Authorship:

  • by John Lyly (1553 - 1606), "Spring's welcome"

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Dirge
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Come away, come away, death,
  And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
  I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
  O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
  Did share it.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Twelfth Night: or, What You Will, Act II, scene 4

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Jan Jonk) , "Kom toch gauw, kom toch gauw, dood", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Komm herbei, komm herbei, Tod", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Vieni, o morte", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Marianne Beate Kielland) , "Kom hit, kom nå hit, død", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • POL Polish (Polski) (Józef Komierowski) , no title

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. The bargain
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
  By just exchange one for another given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
  There never was a better bargain driven:
      My true love hath my heart, and I have his.
 
His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
  My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
  I cherish his because in me it bides:
      My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

Text Authorship:

  • by Philip Sidney, Sir (1554 - 1586)

See other settings of this text.

Note: parodied in Archibald Stodart-Walker's My true friend hath my hat.

Note: Somervell's setting has several changes to the punctuation (as supplied by Mike Pearson):
Line One: No first comma
Line Three: No first comma
Line Five: No first comma
Line Seven: Full stop not colon
Line Eight: Full stop not colon
Line Ten: No first comma

Researcher for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 270
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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

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