Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918.
By Archibald T. Strong165 . Vain Death
A
But watched till morning came,
And when she slept at dawn, she heard
The dead man call her name.
And called on death for grace,
And when she slept before the dawn
She saw the dead man’s face.
That knows her way to bliss,
And in the instant ere she slept
She felt the dead man’s kiss.
(And oh, but she was fair!),
Like a wild witch behind her danced
The shadow of her hair.
The tender blade she kissed,
And by the firelight’s dying leap
She bared her little wrist.
She cut, once and again,
Yet ere she swooned from life, she knew
Her death had been in vain.
Ere yet her pulse might fail,
Far off across the kindless night
She heard the dead man’s wail,
That kill the life God gave,
And that she might not leave this earth
Her soul alive to save,
But ay must dwell within that house
As in a living grave,
Win to her in that place,
But must for ever make his moan
Ranging in agony alone
The trackless void of space.