The Lyrics of Henry VIII/Alone I leffe alone, Cooper

[f.22r]

Alone I leffe alone and sore I sygh for one

a lone I leff alone and sore I syghe for one

a lone I leue alone and sore I sygh for one

Doctor Cooper

Textual Commentary
“Alone I leffe alone” is a song bemoaning solitude, with an ambiguous play in the second line referring either to the speaker’s self-pity (the “one” being the speaker) or to the speaker’s longing for the company of a specific other. This lyric’s adaptation in Thynne’s Chaucer and Kele’s Christmas carolles newely inprynted, noted below, suggests that the latter of these two possibilities is more probable. A popular lyric in its time, “Alone I leffe alone” has both secular and religious associations. It is noted in “I have non English convenient and digne,” attributed to John Lydgate (Minor Poems 281; A Balade in commedation in Thynne’s Chaucer 374–75): “That for you singe, so as I may, for mone / For your departing; alone I live, alone” (ll. 104–105). The two lines are used as a burden for a lyric appearing in PRO Exchequer Miscellanea 163/23/1/1, and it is listed as the name of the air for “Wan ic wente byyonde the see” CGon (41). A later carol on the Virgin and the Son—“Alone, alone, alone, alone / Sore I sygh, and all for one” (Kele’s Christmas carolles newely inprynted 17)—adapts these lines to its burden and takes the matter of the lyric from “Alone, alone, alone, alone, / Here I sytt alone, alas, alone” (LFay ff. 48v–50r).


 * 1   leffe   Live.

“Alone I leffe alone” is in the form of a round set for three voices. There exists little formal distinction (no spacing, line breaks, or illuminated block capitals) separating one voice from the other.

“Alone I leffe alone” is indexed in Robbins Index & Suppl. 266.5, Boffey, and Ringler MS TM138. The piece is reprinted in Flügel Anglia 231, Briggs Collection 3–4, Stevens M&P 390, and Stevens MCH8 17.