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

111. Prayer

LET us leave our island woods grown dim and blue;

O’er the waters creeping the pearl dust of the eve

Hides the silver of the long wave rippling through:

The chill for the warm room let us leave.

Turn the lamp down low and draw the curtain wide,

So the greyness of the starlight bathes the room;

Let us see the giant face of night outside,

Though vague as a moth’s wing is the gloom.

Rumour of the fierce-pulsed city far away

Breaks upon the peace that aureoles our rest,

Steeped in stillness as if some primeval day

Hung drowsily o’er the water’s breast.

Shut the eyes that flame and hush the heart that burns:

In quiet we may hear the old primeval cry:

God gives wisdom to the spirit that upturns:

Let us adore now, you and I.

Age on age is heaped about us as we hear:

Cycles hurry to and fro with giant tread

From the deep unto the deep: but do not fear,

For the soul unhearing them is dead.