Song by Elizabeth I’s court musician is a lullaby in praise of sleep – but might it also be an elegy written ahead of time?
Weep you no more, sad fountains
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
Heaven’s sun doth gently waste.
But my sun’s heavenly eyes
View not your weeping,
That now lie sleeping
Softly, now softly lies
Sleeping.