Love
Come away! come, sweet Love!
From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)
Come away! come, sweet Love!
The golden morning breaks;
All the earth, all the air,
Of love and pleasure speaks!
Teach thine arms then to embrace,
And sweet rosy lips to kiss,
And mix our souls in mutual bliss.
Eyes were made for beauty's grace
Viewing, ruing, love's long pain;
Procured by beauty's rude disdain.
Come away! come, sweet Love!
The golden morning wastes
While the sun from his sphere
His fiery arrows casts:
Making all the shadows fly,
Playing, staying in the grove
To entertain the stealth of love.
Thither, sweet Love, let us hie,
Flying, dying in desire,
Wing'd with sweet hopes and heavenly fire.
Come away! come, sweet Love!
Do not in vain adorn
Beauty's grace, that should rise
Like to our naked morn!
Lilies on the river's side,
And fair Cyprian flowers new-blown,
Desire no beauties but their own:
Ornament is nurse of pride.
Pleasure measure[s] love's delight:
Haste then, sweet love, our wished flight!
Codex Note
From John Dowland's First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Come away! come, sweet Love!” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/25/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Come away! come, sweet Love!” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/25/.
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