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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse  »  113 . My Heart was wandering in the Sands

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

By Christopher J. Brennan

113 . My Heart was wandering in the Sands

MY heart was wandering in the sands,

a restless thing, a scorn apart;

Love set his fire in my hands,

I clasp’d the flame unto my heart.

Surely, I said, my heart shall turn

one fierce delight of pointed flame;

and in that holocaust shall burn

its old unrest and scorn and shame:

surely my heart the heavens at last

shall storm with fiery orisons,

and know, enthroned in the vast,

the fervid peace of molten suns.

The flame that feeds upon my heart

fades or flares, by wild winds controll’d;

my heart still walks a thing apart,

my heart is restless as of old.