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Poetry · Poem

Dirge

William ShakespeareEnglish RenaissancePoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
COME away, come away, death,
And in sad cypres let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave
To weep there!
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

A speaker who says he has been slain by a cruel beloved calls on death to come, orders his own shroud and coffin, and asks to be buried where no flower, friend or grieving lover can ever find the grave.

Language notes

Text and edition

The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.