At a time when poets and composers were becoming increasingly interested in the problems of affective writing, grief, melancholy and despair were welcomed because they provided an opportunity for the exploitation of new techniques.
In comparison to the other lute songs in the Second Booke, "I Saw My Lady Weepe" ends on the fifth; looking at the chordal structure, the final note of the sung line is the leading-tone.
Looking at "I Saw My Lady Weepe" on its own, the relationship created by ending on the fifth "...might seem easily explicable in traditional modal terms, the harmonic language of the song cannot sensibly be read as mode 4 (a-a', but with the final on e)."
[2] When viewed in relation to Wells' idea of the melancholy, it may begin to appear these two songs are not a pair, as Leech-Wilkinson suggests, but rather that the sense of a need for resolution left behind at the end of "I Saw My Lady Weepe" could be intentional on the part of the composer, in order to leave the listener with a deeper sense of the emotions of the work.
[2] ...the melodic ascent which closes I saw my lady weep, e' f' g' a', pausing on the neighbour-note g' sharp as a pivot between the two songs, is answered at the start of Flow my tears by the complementary descent a' g' f' e', which is itself both anticipated in augmentation in the bass at the end of I saw my lady weep… and echoed immediately at the beginning of Flow my teares in the lowest line of the lute.This melodic joining of the songs lends itself to the idea that "I Saw My Lady Weepe" may have been composed as an introduction to "Flow My Tears".
This idea is built upon the knowledge that "Flow My Tears" is a setting of an earlier Dowland pavane for lute, while, according to Leech-Wilkinson, "I Saw My Lady Weepe" most likely originated as a song.
Sorrow was there made fair, And Passion wise, tears a delightful thing, Silence beyond all speech a wisdom rare.