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John Dowland Quotes

John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century's early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists. Wikipedia  

✵ 2. January 1563 – 1626
John Dowland: 7 quotes1 like

Famous John Dowland Quotes

“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.”

John Dowland

"Come again", line 1, The First Book of Songs.

“Flow my tears, fall from your springs,
Exil'd for ever: let me mourn
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.”

John Dowland

"Flow my tears", line 1, The Second Book of Songs (1600).

“My favourite musician happens to be the same as Shakespeare's: John Dowland. His songs are sorrowful but heal the soul by their sweetness and courage.”

John Dowland

Robert Graves, letter to Idries Shah, September 6, 1968; published in Between Moon and Moon: Selected Letters of Robert Graves 1946-1972, (1984), p. 272.
Criticism

“Hark you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light,
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.”

John Dowland

"Flow my tears", line 21, The Second Book of Songs.

“Always Dowland, always sorrowful.”
Semper Dowland semper dolens.

John Dowland

Title of a pavan in Lachrimae, or Seven Tears (1604).

“He was the rarest musician that his age did behold; having travelled beyond the seas, and compounded English with foreign skill in that faculty.”

John Dowland

Thomas Fuller The History of the Worthies of England ([1662] 1840), vol. 2, p. 426.
Criticism

“True love cannot be changed,
Though delight from desert
Be estranged.
Farewell, farewell
But yet or ere I part (O cruel),
Kiss me sweet, kiss me sweet my jewel.”

John Dowland

"Wilt thou unkind thus reave me of my heart", line 25, The First Book of Songs (1597).

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