- Come Again (Dowland)
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Come Again, sweet love doth now invite is a song by John Dowland. The lyrics are anonymous. Dowland's music can be performed by soloist and lute or by a small vocal group (typically SATB). The song is bitter-sweet, typical of Dowland who cultivated a melancholy style.[1]
It was published in his "First Booke of Songes or Ayres" (1597).
Contents
Lyrics
Come 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.
All the day the sun that lends me shine
By frowns do cause me pine
And feeds me with delay;
Her smiles, my springs that makes my joy to grow,
Her frowns the Winters of my woe.
All the night my sleeps are full of dreams,
My eyes are full of streams.
My heart takes no delight
To see the fruits and joys that some do find
And mark the storms are me assign'd.
Out alas, my faith is ever true,
Yet will she never rue
Nor yield me any grace;
Her eyes of fire, her heart of flint is made,
Whom tears nor truth may once invade.
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.[2]Recent Performances
The Scottish tenor Paul Agnew gives a clear uncluttered performance with Christopher Wilson (from the 2005 CD "Dowland: Flow My Teares") that can be heard on YouTube.[3] Sting recorded the song with lutenist Edin Karamazov for the album Songs from the Labyrinth (performed in an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). The song has also been recorded with Celtic Harper Jay Michaels and Vocalist Abby Michaels, who are the Celtic/Folk/Renaissance duo The Harper and The Minstrel. The song is on their 2008 album Beloved Mine. In 1999, the Canadian singer/songwriter Garnet Rogers recorded the song on his album Sparrow's Wing.
In Other Media
Lines 8-10 are quoted in the Philip K. Dick novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
References
- ^ Wells, Robin Headlam. "John Dowland and Elizabethan Melancholy," Early Music, Vol.13, No. 4. November 1985 pp 514–28.
- ^ Dowland, John. "Lute Songs of John Dowland". Come Again. David Nadal and Kithara Editions. http://books.google.com/books?id=OWk94SUtkfUC&pg=PA41&vq=%22of+my+woe:+All+the+night+My+sleeps+are+full+of+dreams.+My+eyes+are+full+of+streams.+My+heart%22&source=gbs_quotes_r&cad=6#v=onepage&q=%22of%20my%20woe%3A%20All%20the%20night%20My%20sleeps%20are%20full%20of%20dreams.%20My%20eyes%20are%20full%20of%20streams.%20My%20heart%22&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-22.
- ^ Agnew, Paul. "Come Again". by John Dowland. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoRbncF9UHw&feature=related.
Categories:- Song stubs
- Compositions by John Dowland
- Lute songs
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