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A Bush Fire

Edward S. Sorenson

Yes, there’s the swamp; and this is where
    The house and shed once stood.
There’s nothing left, save here and there
    A bit of mouldering wood;
Yet the scene is not forgotten
    When that flooded swamp was sear;
Even these old sleepers rotten
    Recall some memory dear.

All was different then, and many
    A comrade on the brow
Of the hill stood where not any
    Are there to greet us now.
It was o’er that mountain yonder,
    Where mist-wraiths go floating by,
That I first looked up in wonder
    At the sullen, smoke-wreathed sky.

I forget who gave the warning—
    Unless it was Big Ben —
That the hills and flats were burning
    At the back of our old den;
Near the nags I know we found him
    With a scared look on his face,
As he cast his eyes around him,
    And noted each dread trace.

In the north the sky was ruddy,
    Beneath a redder glow,
Where the swamp was dried up, muddy,
    And lay dead rushes low.
Black the cinders dropped around us,
    Awesome sounds began to boom,
And the wind that brings the sound as
    Quickly wafts a strange perfume.

After Ben’s ejaculation,
    Each, prepared to take the lead,
With a muttered execration,
    Sprang on to a sturdy steed—
Hard to ride for lives worth saving
    Beyond the scrubby belt,
Hence the flames were leaping, laving,
    Where a fair sweet maiden dwelt.

Twice a week we made our toilet
    (For we were courting then),
And five miles we used to call it
    From our place to the glen;
But now, where “Deep Creek’s” rocky course is,
    With bare arms and moles besmeared,
We rode at top speed of our horses
    Past gorges wild and weird.

Up the last steep hill we galloped,
To its timbered top we came,
Whence we viewed the plain all scalloped
With a howling line of flame;
While to rearward was all blackened,
Around us clouds of smoke—
But our reins we never slackened
Through ironbark and oak.

Came a coo-ee from the hillside,
    And vibrated in our ears,
As we bounded o’er a rill wide,
    All filled with deadly fears;
For the cot was in the centre
    Of a circling line of fire,
Which awhile ago had rent a
    Huge gap across the mire.

“Ride, boys, ride, straight for the hayshed,
    There’s time to save it yet,
There are none as strong’s the bay, Ned,
    Though his sides are reeking wet.
Press on, or the heat will rout us
    If the buildings catch alight;
The cinders—see!—fall thick about us,
    And have lit the grass to right!”

New-lit fires sprang up beside us,
    Huge snakes rushed thro’ the grass;
Seemed the jackass to deride us
    As ‘neath his perch we pass;
While afar aloft were soaring
    Great eagle-hawks in dearth,
For some easy prey exploring
    The black and arid earth.

From the point where he had laboured,
    Where his half-scorched cattle moaned,
Thinking yet the flat was favoured,
    Where his children fought and groaned—
Rode the father, panting, homeward,
    On his frightened, maddened steed;
But no way was open combward,
    Nor over the fire-lit mead!

Straight on where the broad morass is,
    Undaunted still he reels,
While thro’ crackling reeds and grasses
    Comes the demon at his heels;
And when at last among the blades stout
    He falls down in a swoon,
With one low cry his brave wife wades out
    Across the wild lagoon!

In the swamp where flames were sporting,
    Deeply in black mud immersed,
Plunged the horse in saddle snorting,
    To a hellish fate accursed;
While the woman, wet and dripping,
    His senseless rider bore,
Aided only by a stripling,
    Towards the open cottage door.

Help, awe-stricken, none can render
    The beast in mercy’s name;
Lift his head in awful splendour,
    As ‘tis tossed amid the flame;
And his master’s children watch him,
    Sobbing sadly while he dies,
‘Till below the tongues that scorch him
    A lifeless mass he lies.

Ever ‘bove the burning dry wood
    The dense black smokes cloud-soar;
Onward hounding, leaping skyward,
    The forked red flames roar;
And only two pair arms to battle
    On behalf of home and all,
Nigh half-smothered like the cattle
    Saved at their father’s fall.

But a short span from the rushes
    They oped in the noon-tide glare;
Now the shed each skirt nigh brushes,
    As they make way in despair.
Fierce and furious, onward dashing,
    One rapacious living sheet,
Comes the fire with awful crashing,
    The gallant pair to meet.

One was but a frail young girl, with
    A mass of raven hair,
And two rows of teeth like pearl, with
    A little face as fair;
And I saw Ben’s eyelids moisten,
    Knew the pain within his breast,
Saw him turn and urge his horse on—
    For he knew she loved me best.

As we sprang from jaded horses
    A cry came from below.
‘Twas a welcome to fresh forces
    To quell the drastic foe.
Wiry sinews quickly were then
    To utmost tension stretched,
As thick boughs, swung ‘bove the bare fen,
    On flaming sheets were fetched.

Not a word was spoken where we,
    Afront a fearful pyre,
All were struggling hard to spare the
    Old cottage from the fire.
‘Till the lines, asunder riven,
    Had leapt across the creek,
And, by fanning night-winds driven,
    Swept on in a blood-red streak.

Night had fallen dark and dreary
    Upon a blacker base,
Tho’ a thousand log-fires clearly
    Illumined barren space;
When, beneath a stately gum-tree,
    Some few words were spoken low,
That will sweetly live in memory
    As the summers come and go.

Still, you wonder why I’m single,
    When I love the place left they;
Why a tear will sometimes mingle
    With my laughter now I’m grey?
But the sailor when he cruises
    Forgets across the sea
That the one who tarries loses—
    Well, that’s the way with me.

Edward S. Sorenson, Casino

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