| Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918. |
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| 109. Of taking Things easy |
| | | By Arthur Maquarie |
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| TELL me what boots to battle, when the end | |
| Is foreseen failure? What, by heaven, I ask— | |
| By bearded martyrs, and the holy cask | |
| Of papal comfort, what can struggle lend | |
| Of true nobility to those who bend | 5 |
| Constrainèd after all? ’Twere better bask | |
| With resignation and a quiet flask | |
| Than rush to strokes that heaven will surely send. | |
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| Methinks the base desire to change our stars | |
| Is but the taint of old mortality, | 10 |
| And as the wavelet curls in every sea | |
| The schoolboy bares his wounds and thinks him Mars. | |
| Give me Petrarca and a pot of tea, | |
| And carry thou thy honourable scars. | |
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