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

92. Fantasy

OVER all the dream-built margin, flushed with grey and hoary light,

Glint the bubble planets tossing in the dead black sea of night.

Immemorial face, how many faces look from out thy skies,

Now with ghostly eyes of wonder rimmed around with rainbow dyes:

Now the secrets of the future trail along the silent spheres:

Ah, how often have I followed filled with phantom hopes and fears,

Where my star that rose dream-laden, moving to the mystic crown,

On the yellow moon-rock foundered and my joy and dreams went down.

As a child with hands uplifted peering through the cloudless miles

Bent the Mighty Mother o’er me shining all with eyes and smiles:

“Come up hither, child, my darling”: waving to the habitations,

Thrones, and starry kings around her, dark embattled planet nations.

There the mighty rose in greeting, as their child from exile turning

Smiled upon the awful faces o’er the throne supernal burning.

As with sudden sweetness melting, shone the eyes, the hearts of home,

Changed the vision, and the Mother vanished in the vasty dome.

So from marvel unto marvel turned the face I gazed upon,

Till its fading majesty grew tender as a child at dawn,

And the heaven of heavens departed and the visions passed away

With the seraph of the darkness martyred in the fires of day.