How should I your true love know

 How should I your true love know
 From another one?
 By his cockle hat and staff,
 And his sandal shoon.

 He is dead and gone, lady,
 He is dead and gone;
 At his head a grass green turf,
 At his heels a stone.

 White his shroud as the mountain snow,
 Larded with sweet flowers;
 Which bewept to the grave did go
 With true-love showers.

 And will he not come again?
 And will he not come again?
 No, no, he is dead:
 Go to thy deathbed.
 He never, never will come again,
 He never will come again.

 His beard was as white as snow,
 All flaxen was his poll;
 He is gone,
 And we cast away moan:
 God ha' mercy on his soul.

by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist
sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) , no title, WoO posth. 22 no. 1 (1873), stanzas 1-2, from Ophelia-Lieder, no. 1, note: also set in German
by Roger Quilter (1877-1953) , "How should I your true love know", op. 30 no. 3, stanzas 1-3.
by Maude Valérie White (1855-1937) , "Ophelia's Song"

by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg (1760-1802) , "Ophelia", published 1802, from Kleine Balladen und Lieder Heft IV no. 2.

by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) , no title, WoO posth. 22 no. 1 (1873), from Ophelia-Lieder, no. 1, note: also set in English

by Richard Georg Strauss (1864-1949) , "Erstes Lied der Ophelia", op. 67 (Sechs Lieder), Heft 1 no. 1 (1918).

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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