Byrd seemed, on the whole, to resist the madrigal movement in England;

he wrote only a few true madrigals, though he did adapt many of his

works for solo voice to madrigal form, during the height of the madrigal

craze. This piece is one of those—originally a solo song, but

printed as a part-song to accomodate the new fashion. Even then,

it sounds somewhat more like his church music, as the text does

not rhyme, and the effect is stately, rather than the more flexible-

sounding madrigal.

The text is a lamentation on the death of Philip Sidney, one of the major

poets of the period, whose poetic cycle Astrophil and Stella provided

texts for many solo ayres. The heavy mood is set by gloomy chords and

the constant repetition in nearly every line and in each voice, and

the whole effect is very striking.

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