Dowland, Flow My Tears

Flow My Tears has a prominent place in our Discovering Music course. Despite the often sad, even morose, themes of Dowland’s songs, they have an immediate appeal. Maybe it’s the melancholy that attracts young listeners who tend to believe that their youthful sorrows are unprecedented in human history.

Semper Dowland, semper dolens. Dowland himself gave this title (always Dowland, always doleful) to one of his works.

Flow My Tears also has a prominent place among Dowland’s many lute songs. It ranks perhaps as his biggest hit. Originally an instrumental piece with the title Lachrimae pavan, it was published in 1596. The words were added later, written perhaps by Dowland himself. So while it is tempting to think of the falling melodic line as the result of text painting, it would seem that the melody inspired the text instead.

I featured Dowland in this series a few years ago with the slightly less doleful Now, Oh Now, I Needs Must Part (sung in four parts).

Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.

Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.

Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.

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