Digital Tradition Mirror

Now, Oh, Now I Needs Must Part

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Now, Oh, Now I Needs Must Part

Now, oh, now I needs must part,
Parting tho' I absent mourn;
Abscence can no joy impart;
Joy once fled cannot return.

While I live I needs must love;
Love lives not when hope is gone,
Now at last despair doth prove:
Love divided loveth none.

Sad dispair doth drive me hence
This dispair unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she which then offends.

Dear when I am from thee gone,
Gone are all my joys at once!
I love thee and thee alone,
In whose love I joyed once.

And altho' your sight I leave,
Sight wherein my joys do lie,
Till that death do sense bereave,
Never shall affection die.

Sad dispair doth drive me hence
This dispair unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she which then offends.

Dear, if I do not return,
Love and I shall die together,
For my abscence never mourn
Whom you might have joyed ever.

Part we must, tho' now I die;
Die I do, to part with you.
For my abscence never mourn,
Who both lived and died true.

Sad dispair doth drive me hence,
This dispair unkindness sends,
If that parting the offends,
It is she which then offends

[tune: The Frog Gaillard, by John Dowland]
John Dowland, First book of songs, 1597.
WBO
oct97

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!