• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

The Bush Fire [poem by Kenneth Mackay]

28 April 2016 · 2 Comments

[Editor: This poem by Kenneth Mackay was published in Stirrup Jingles from the Bush and the Turf and Other Rhymes (1887).]

The Bush Fire.

In days when breath comes short and fast,
And birds are still with stifling heat;
While clouds of dust are upwards cast
By weary cattle’s lagging feet;

When winds that come are dry and hot,
From burning forests filled with flames,
And horses seek each shaded spot,
With reeking sides and drooping manes;

In times of drought, when all the land
Is full of glare and torrid heat;
When streams are only gleaming sand,
To mock and blister thirsty feet;

When thunders roll and lightnings flash,
And all the sky is wild and red,
As mighty storm-clouds onward dash,
To join aerial combat dread,

All pitiless, alas, they soar,
Forgetful through the heated air —
Then tearless pass, nor stoop to pour
The life they in their bosoms bear:

’Tis then the fiery demon springs
From forests thick with scrub and pine,
To scorch and blast all living things,
From sturdy box to clinging vine.

Above his path the air is dark
With clouds that speak of fear and death,
While gleaming sparks of leaf and bark
Are borne upon his baneful breath.

The smoke in heavy circles floats,
That hour by hour decrease in size,
While men stand still with parching throats,
To gaze with terror-stricken eyes

Upon the sun that, sinking low
Behind the hill-heads brown and bare,
Seems like some demon’s face aglow
With thirst and anguish and despair.

And through the dust hurrying past
Great droves of cattle, and the goods
Of those in other days who cast
Their lot among the deeper woods;

While in their rear the bushmen wage
A losing battle all night long,
Where all the air is full of rage
And smoke and death and fiendish song.

Once and again they dash their boughs
Against the crackling ruddy line
That licks their sweat-besprinkled brows,
And makes them reel as though with wine;

About their feet the insects crawl,
That live in rot and noisome shades;
Above their heads great monarchs fall,
Struck to the heart by fiery blades.

And gliding on from log to log,
Snakes hurry by with sinuous haste,
While kangaroo and native dog
With terror fly the burning waste.

God help the flocks they cannot bring;
The cattle, mad with smoke and pain;
The birds that have not strength of wing;
The men who fly when flight is vain!

For back the fighters fall at last,
With swollen tongues and blistered feet;
And trees are laid before the blast
As reapers slay the ripened wheat.

* * *

’Tis night once more, and all around
A thousand watchfires light the scene;
The fire-king holds the conquered ground,
And rests where forest homes have been.

While on the morrow, o’er the smoke
That hangs above the cursed place,
Will eagles fly with regal stroke
O’er blacken’d stump and blasted face;

And foetid things will scent the prize,
And come to gloat with reeking breath,
And fight, and fill with furious cries
This land of ruin and of death.



Source:
Kenneth Mackay, Stirrup Jingles from the Bush and the Turf and Other Rhymes, Sydney: Edwards, Dunlop & Co., 1887, pages 25-28

Editor’s notes:
baneful = bad, evil; causing destruction, great distress, much damage, woe (may also refer to something which causes death, especially poison)

morrow = (archaic) the next day, tomorrow

o’er = over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)

reek = [1] fog, fumes, smoke, steam, or vapor (may also refer to a strong unpleasant smell)

reek = [2] a strong unpleasant smell (may also refer to fog, fumes, smoke, steam, or vapor)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Kenneth Mackay (1859-1935) (author), poem, poetry about bushfires, SourceSLV, Stirrup Jingles from the Bush and the Turf and Other Rhymes (Kenneth Mackay 1887), year1887

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. De Boeker says

    10 February 2020 at 11:50

    Well, well, 1887, why did’nt we study the Poem in school?
    prose is so beautifully written, for AUSTRALIA we have lived
    with destruction that nature brings, amazing we still have our native animals
    and how the bush regenerates, Long Live Australia.

    Reply
  2. Yong Mateus says

    24 February 2020 at 07:42

    Good post! Thanks!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, Kangaroo, Wattle, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Search this site

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • A billabong: Goulbourn River [postcard, 27 November 1907]
  • Dear Mac [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • The New to the Old [poem by Randolph Bedford, 3 January 1896]
  • New Year greetings [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • New Year greetings [postcard, early 20th Century]

Top Posts & Pages

  • Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • Australian slang
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Click Go the Shears [folk music, lyrics; traditional Australian song, 1890s]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]

Archives

Categories

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • Annie Crestani on Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • Peter Pearsall on The Clarence [poem by Jack Moses]
  • Trevor Hurst on Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Ju on Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • David Carroll on Queensland [poem by Philip Durham Lorimer]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in