Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918.
By Jessie Mackay55 . Song of the Drift Weed
H
Toast it full and fairly when the winter lowers.
Speak ye low, my merry men, sitting at your ease;
Harken to the homeless Drift in the roaring seas!
Cut for us awry, awry ages ere the birth.
Set the teeth and meet it well, wind upon the shore;
Like a lion, in the face look the Nevermore!
What of that? a many shells have a pearl within;
Some are mated with the gold in the light of day;
Some are buried fathoms deep, in the seas away.
We’re the drift of the world and the tangle of the sea.
It’s far beyond the Pleiad, it’s out beyond the sun
Where the rootless shall be rooted when the wander-year is done!