Need you not my life to hear:
I was born, now I am here.
If few words disinterest thee,
Cut the limb and leave the tree.

Will you jump to laugh and jeer
Something slim or slight or mere?
Tales without a finite end,
Records played out, year by year, is
All I have to offer, and to
You, who whistles troves of them,
Heaps of wool 'twould be to shear.
Why pay mind, when all I wrote were
Songs of a resolving note?

If but one would come sincere,
I would, glad, delight their ear.
I would start to weave a thread,
Then my life would seem less dead.
But, as prying faces peer,
Wherefore I remain austere.

So there's nothing more to see;
Birth and death defineth me.
I was born, now I am here:
Need you not the rest to hear.