Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918.
166. Tragedy
A
The long day’s toil for him was done:
The eye that scanned the page could leave
Its task until tomorrow’s sun.
Flared on his tired eyes the sight,
Where host on host the multitude
Burned fiercely in the dusky night.
The giant children of the blue,
Heaped scorn upon his trembling clay
And with their laughter pierced him through.
“The power we have was once in thee.
King, is thy spirit grown so dim,
That thou art slave and we are free?”
The free—the fearless, whirled in play,
He knew himself that bitter hour
The close of all his royal day.
Within the fiery furnace glow,
Exile of all the vast expanse,
He turned him homeward sick and slow.