Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

By Sydney Jephcott

52 . White Paper

SNOWY-SMOOTH beneath the pen—

Richest field that iron ploughs,

Germinating thoughts of men,

Tho’ no heaven its rain allows.

There they ripen, thousand-fold;

And our spirits reap the corn,

In a day-long dream of gold—

Food for all the souls unborn.

Like the murmur of the earth,

When we listen stooping low,

Like sap singing nature’s mirth

Foaming up the trees that grow.

Evermore a subtle song

Sings the pen unto it, while

Fluid idea flows along,

Each new Era’s mother-Nile.

Greater than ensphering Sea,

For it holds the sea and land;

Seed of every deed to be

Down its current borne like sand.

I caress thy surface sheer,

Holding thee the Absolute;

Where the things to be inhere,

Waiting their material bruit.

How I love thee! my heart’s blood

Were too dull to smutch thy white!

I’ll aver: no lily’s bud

Lays such unction on my sight.

Suave of maiden’s throat or arm,

Bliss embodied to the touch,

Has not such ambrosial charm—

Not a marble Goddess such!

Dear White Paper! All To-day

Palpitates with spirit-heat—

Only on thy whiteness may

Seers translate its rhythms sweet!

Holy Paper! all the Past

Were a rack of ruined cloud

Stripping from our orbit vast,

But thou Eternity endowed

With an actual soul of speech—

Life of life by death distilled—

That all dateless days shall reach,

As life’s vine of veins is filled.

O, the glorious Heavens wrought

By Cadmean souls of yore

From pure element of Thought!

And thy leaves their silvern door!

Light they open, and we stand

Past the sovereignty of Fate;

Glad among Them, still and grand,

The Creators and Create!