Not Xanadu

Not Xanadu, but Xanten-on-the-Rhine

Was where I last heard Nightingales:  they sang

Unseen among the bushes and the trees

Made bare by our bombardment.

Sentries listened, and those that could not sleep,

Dreading the coming dawn, felt even lonelier.

The Larks that sang when I was young

Lift no more from moor or meadow.

They flew up ‘till the rim of heaven

And poured their song upon the thirsting earth.

The Nazis could not kill the nightingales                                                        

But peace and pesticides put paid

To birdsong and brought about

The silence of the Larks.