The Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics/Book 1/Poem 44

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

For other versions of this work, see Come Away, Death.

xliv

DIRGE OF LOVE

Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypres 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, O where
Sad true lover never find my grave.
To weep there.
W. Shakespeare