| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Come, Sorrow, Come | | Anonymous |
| | | COME, 1 Sorrow, come, sit down and mourn with me; | |
| Hang down thy head upon thy baleful breast, | |
| That God and man and all the world may see | |
| Our heavy hearts do live in quiet rest: | |
| Enfold thine arms and wring thy wretched hands | 5 |
| To shew the State wherein poor Sorrow stands. | |
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| Cry not outright, for that were children’s guise, | |
| But let thy tears fall trickling down thy face, | |
| And weep so long until thy blubbered eyes | |
| May see in sum the depth of thy disgrace. | 10 |
| Oh shake thy head, but not a word but mum; 2 | |
| The heart once dead, the tongue is stroken dumb. | |
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| And let our fare be dishes of despite | |
| To break our hearts and not our fasts withal; | |
| Then let us sup with sorrow-sops at night, | 15 |
| And bitter sauce all of a broken gall: | |
| Thus let us live till heavens may rue to see | |
| The doleful doom ordained for thee and me. | |
| | | Note 1. From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Airs, 1600. [back] | Note 2. Oh shake thy head, but not a word but mum: The expression, not a word but mum (= silence) was proverbial. Cf. Peele’s Old Wives’ Tale:| | What? not a word but mum? then Sacrapant, |
| We are betrayed. |
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