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Arthur Symons - Airs For The Lute
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To MADAME ELODIE DOLMETSCH 

I 
WHEN the sobbing lute complains, 
Grieving for an ancient sorrow, 
This poor sorrow that remains 
Fain would borrow, 
To give pleading unto sorrow, 
Those uncapturable Strains. 

All, that hands upon the lute 
Helped the voices to declare, 
Voices mute 
But for this, might I not share, 
If, alas, I could but suit- 
Hand and voice unto the lute! 

II 
If time so sweetly 
On true according viols make 
Her own completely 
The lawless laws of turn and shake; 

How should I doubt then 
Love, being tuned unto your mood, 
Should bring about then 
True time and measure of your blood? 

III 
Why are you so sorrowful in dreams? 
I am sad in the night; 
The hours till morning are white, 
I hear the hours` flight 
All night in dreams. 
Why do you send me your dreams? 

For an old love`s sake; 
I dream if I sleep or wake, 
And shall but one heart ache, 
For the sake of dreams? 

Pray that we sleep without dreams! 
Ah, love, the only way 
To put sorrow away, 
Night or day, night or day, 
From the way of dreams! 
 
IV 
Strange, to remember tears! 
Yet I know that I wept; 
And those hopes and those fears, 
Strange, were as real as tears! 

What`s this delicate pain, 
Twilight-coloured and grey? 
Odour-like through my brain 
Steals a shadowy pain, 

What`s this joy in the air? 
Musical as the leaves, 
When the white winds are there, 
Faint joy breathes in the air.
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