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

55. The Hour of the King

WHO would think this quiet breather

From the world had taken flight?

Yet within the form we see there

Wakes the Golden King to-night.

Out upon the face of faces

He looked forth before his sleep:

Now he knows the starry races

Haunters of the ancient deep.

On the Bird of Diamond Glory

Floats in mystic floods of song:

As he lists Time’s triple story

Seems but as a day is long.

From the mightier Adam falling

To his image dwarfed in clay,

He will at our voices calling

Come to this side of the day.

When he wakes, the dreamy-hearted,

He will know not whence he came,

And the light from which he parted

Be the seraph’s sword of flame,

And behind it hosts supernal

Guarding the lost paradise,

And the tree of life eternal

From the weeping human eyes.