Away, delights! go seek some other dwelling,
        For I must die.
Farewell, false love! thy tongue is ever telling
        Lie after lie.
For ever let me rest now from thy smarts;
        Alas, for pity go
        And fire their hearts
That have been hard to thee! Mine was not so.

Never again deluding love shall know me,
        For I will die;
And all those griefs that think to overgrow me
        Shall be as I:
For ever will I sleep, while poor maids cry --
        'Alas, for pity stay,
        And let us die
With thee! Men cannot mock us in the clay.'

Confirmed with Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir. The Oxford Book of English Verse, Oxford, Clarendon, 1919, [c1901]; Bartleby.com, 1999.

Text Authorship:

• by John Fletcher (1579 - 1625), "Away, delights" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

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

• by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), "Away, delights", 1950 [ high voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), "Away, delights", published 1979 [ men's chorus ], Alexander Broude ; an arrangement of the earlier setting for voice and piano [sung text not yet checked]
• by Robert Johnson (c1583 - 1633), "Away, delights" [ soprano and lute (10-string) ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Alan Rawsthorne (1905 - 1971), "Away, delights", 1940, published 1943 [ voice and piano ], from Two Songs, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2013-02-06
Line count: 16
Word count: 99