Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONG, by JOHN DOWLAND


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First Line: O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness
Last Line: O how much do I love your solitariness.
Subject(s): Happiness; Joy; Delight


O SWEET woods, the delight of solitariness,
O how much do I love your solitariness.
From fame's desire, from love's delight retired,
In these sad groves a hermit's life I led,
And those false pleasures which I once admired,
With sad remembrance of my fall, I dread:
To birds, to trees, to earth, impart I this,
For she less secret, and as senseless is.

Experience which repentance only brings,
Doth bid me now my heart from love estrange:
Love is disdained when it doth look at Kings,
And love low placed base and apt to change:
Their power doth take from him his liberty,
Her want of worth makes him in cradle die.

You, men that give false worship unto love,
And seek that which you never shall obtain,
The endless work of Sisiphus you procure,
Whose end is this to know you strive in vain,
Hope and desire which now your idols be,
You needs must loose and feel despair with me.

You, woods, in you the fairest Nymphs have walked,
Nymphs at whose sight all hearts did yield to love,
You, woods in whom dear lovers oft have talked,
How do you now a place of mourning prove?
Wanted my mistress faith this is the doom,
Thou art love's childbed, nursery, and tomb.
O, sweet woods, the delight of solitariness,
O how much do I love your solitariness.





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