Tenor, Viola, and Piano
Duration: ca. 8 minutes
Publisher: C. F. Peters Corporation, Edition Peters 67577
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.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, Oh, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind,
Thou are not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! Sing heigh-ho unto the green holly.
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;
Then, heigh-ho the holly.
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh as benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp as friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! Sing heigh-ho unto the green holly.
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;
Then, heigh-ho the holly.
This life is most jolly.
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.