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

130. A Last Counsel

COULD you not in silence borrow

Strength to go from us ungrieving?

All these hours of loving sorrow

Only make more bitter leaving.

You will go forth lonely, thinking

Of the pain you leave behind you;

From the golden sunlight shrinking

For the earthly tears will blind you.

Better, ah, if now we parted

For the little while remaining;

You would seek when broken-hearted

For the mighty heart’s sustaining.

You would go then gladly turning

From our place of wounds and weeping,

With your soul for comfort burning

To the mother-bosom creeping.