We Cannot Get All that We Wish or Desire [poem by Philip Durham Lorimer]

[Editor: This poem by Philip Durham Lorimer was published in Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, 1901. This poem is listed separately in the contents of the book, although it appears within the biographical section, from which the following text has been extracted.]

[We Cannot Get All that We Wish or Desire]

A chat with a friend and a social pipe Philip thoroughly enjoyed: very little made him happy. As he had written — in an unfinished poem, ‘We cannot get all that we wish or desire’ — on his journey southward, from Brisbane early in 1895:—

“Contentment can reign like a gem in our hours,
Richly set with our wants and our cares ;
Ungranted desires can be sweeter than flowers
In our homes, in our lives, in our prayers.
We carelessly ask, but the Giver knows why
It is kindlier far to refuse ;
Our ugly returns we express in a sigh
For the love we oft daily abuse.”

Source:
E. A. Petherick (editor). Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, William Clowes and Sons, London, 1901, page 47

Editor’s notes:
Giver = God