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Home  »  Collected Poems by A.E.  »  29. Dana

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

29. Dana

I AM the tender voice calling “Away,”

Whispering between the beatings of the heart,

And inaccessible in dewy eyes

I dwell, and all unkissed on lovely lips,

Lingering between white breasts inviolate,

And fleeting ever from the passionate touch,

I shine afar, till men may not divine

Whether it is the stars or the beloved

They follow with rapt spirit. And I weave

My spells at evening, folding with dim caress,

Aerial arms and twilight dropping hair,

The lonely wanderer by wood or shore,

Till, filled with some deep tenderness, he yields,

Feeling in dreams for the dear mother heart

He knew, ere he forsook the starry way,

And clings there, pillowed far above the smoke

And the dim murmur from the duns of men.

I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fill

The dumb brown lips of earth with mystery,

Make them reveal or hide the god. I breathe

A deeper pity than all love, myself

Mother of all, but without hands to heal:

Too vast and vague, they know me not. But yet,

I am the heartbreak over fallen things,

The sudden gentleness that stays the blow,

And I am in the kiss that foemen give

Pausing in battle, and in the tears that fall

Over the vanquished foe, and in the highest,

Among the Danaan gods, I am the last

Council of mercy in their hearts where they

Mete justice from a thousand starry thrones.