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

23. The Symbol Seduces

THERE in her old-world garden smiles

A symbol of the world’s desire,

Striving with quaint and lovely wiles

To bind to earth the soul of fire.

And while I sit and listen there,

The robe of Beauty falls away

From universal things to where

Its image dazzles for a day.

Away! the great life calls; I leave

For Beauty, Beauty’s rarest flower;

For Truth, the lips that ne’er deceive;

For Love, I leave Love’s haunted bower.