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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse  »  111 . Rhapsody

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

By Arthur Maquarie

111 . Rhapsody

LOVERS, are you faring forth?

Will you seek the icy north?

Are you steering by the sun?

Where you journey there is none

But a frozen viking’s targe

Resting idly on the marge.

Lovers, do you make your way

To a land of larger day?

Do you track the homing flight

Of the birds that seek the light?

They will lead you to your death

In the desert’s scorching breath.

North or east or south or west,

Lovers, you will lose your quest,

For the prize of your demand

Yields not to the hunter’s hand;

He who searches love or truth

Leaves them hid behind his youth.