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Three Elizabethan Songs

Song Cycle by Geoffrey Bush (1920 - 1998)

?. Stay o sweet  [sung text not yet checked]

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.

'T is true, 't is day; what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise because 'tis light?
Did we lie down because 'twas night?
  Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
  Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye.
If it could speek as well as spy,
This were the worst that it could say: -
That, being well, I fain would stay,
  And that I lov'd my heart and honour so,
  That I would not from him, that had them, go.

Must business thee from hence remove?
Oh, that's the worse disease of love!
The poor, the fool, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.
  He, which hath business, and makes love, doth do
  Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

Text Authorship:

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

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 185
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