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9 John Dowland Quotes

John Dowland's page drifts through poetic melancholy, sharing verses on love, loss, and the rare musician's art.

John Dowland quotes

  1. 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.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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

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  5. Semper Dowland semper dolens.

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

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  7. 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.

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Also attributed

  1. Who loves not music and the heavenly muse, That man God hates.

  2. Plato defines melody to consist of harmony, number and words: harmony naked of itself, words the ornament of harmony, number the common friend and uniter of them both.