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Home  »  Collected Poems by A.E.  »  84. The Memory of Earth

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

84. The Memory of Earth

IN the wet dusk silver sweet,

Down the violet scented ways,

As I moved with quiet feet

I was met by mighty days.

On the hedge the hanging dew

Glassed the eve and stars and skies;

While I gazed a madness grew

Into thundered battle cries.

Where the hawthorn glimmered white,

Flashed the spear and fell the stroke—

Ah, what faces pale and bright

Where the dazzling battle broke!

There a hero-hearted queen

With young beauty lit the van:

Gone! the darkness flowed between

All the ancient wars of man.

While I paced the valley’s gloom

Where the rabbits pattered near,

Shone a temple and a tomb

With the legend carven clear:

“Time put by a myriad fates

That her day might dawn in glory;

Death made wide a million gates

So to close her tragic story.”