Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918.

63. Comfort

DARK head by the fireside brooding,

Where upon your ears

Whirlwinds of the earth intruding

Sound in wrath and tears:

Tender-hearted, in your lonely

Sorrow I would fain

Comfort you, and say that only

Gods could feel such pain.

Only spirits know such longing

For the far away;

And the fiery fancies thronging

Rise not out of clay.

Keep the secret sense celestial

Of the starry birth;

Though about you call the bestial

Voices of the earth.

If a thousand ages since

Hurled us from the throne:

Then a thousand ages wins

Back again our own.

Sad one, dry away your tears:

Mount again anew:

In the great ancestral spheres

Waits the throne for you.