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Home  »  Collected Poems by A.E.  »  136. Recollection

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

136. Recollection

THROUGH the blue shadowy valley I hastened in a dream:

Flower rich the night, flower soft the air, a blue flower the stream

I hurried over before I came to the cabin door,

Where the orange flame-glow danced within on the beaten floor.

And the lovely mother who drooped by the sleeping child arose:

And I see how with love her eyes are glad, her face how it glows.

And I know all this was past ten thousand years away,

But in the Ever-Living yesterday is here to-day,

And the beauty made dust we cry out for with so much pain.

Unknown lover, I lived over your joy again.

Long dead maiden, your breasts were warm for the living head.

It is we who have passed from ourselves, from beauty which is not dead.

I know, when I come to my own immortal, I will find there

In a myriad instant all that the wandering soul found fair:

Empires that never crumbled, and thrones all glorious yet,

And hearts ere they were broken, and eyes ere they were wet.