LIEDER OHNE BUCHSTABEN by A.D. Hope

Each poet builds in verse
For every age to see:
His monument, a brass
      Eternity.

I would not have it so,
No towers, no tombs, no shows.
As a bird to the green bough
      Love comes, love goes.

I call no witnesses;
The songs I make for you
Should pass like a caresss
      Or the bright dew,

The assent of meeting eyes
When rapture, when laughter
Take silence by surprise;
      And silence after;

World in parenthesis,
Smiles we exchange,
Momentary as this kiss;
      As fierce, as strange.

Such songs I would prepare
As for our supper spread,
Songs we as simply share
      As wine and bread;

Songs for each place and mood,
All seasons of the heart,
And one for solitude
      When we two part.

Then to make one song more:
A song the bird alone
Sings after as before
      His love has flown.

He sings his first song still
Although his heart is wrung,
For love may change at will,
      But not his song.


from Collected Poems, 1930-1970, Angus & Robertson, 1966

On A.D. Hope by Clive James