THE hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs That wore the marks of many rains,and showed Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.
Moreover,round the bases of the bark Were left the tracks of flying forest-fires,As you may see them on the lower bole Of every elder of the native woods.
For,ere the early settlers came and stocked These wilds with sheep and kine,the grasses grew So that they took the passing pilgrim in,And whelmed him,like a running sea,from sight.
And therefore,through the fiercer summer months,While all the swamps were rotten -while the flats Were baked and broken;when the clayey rifts.
Yawned wide,half-choked with drifted herbage past,Spontaneous flames would burst from thence,and race Across the prairies all day long.
At night The winds were up,and then,with four-fold speed,A harsh gigantic growth of smoke and fire Would roar along the bottoms,in the wake Of fainting flocks of parrots,wallaroos,And 'wildered wild things,scattering right and left,For safety vague,throughout the general gloom.
Anon the nearer hillside-growing trees Would take the surges;thus from bough to bough Was borne the flaming terror!Bole and spire,Rank after rank,now pillared,ringed,and rolled In blinding blaze,stood out against the dead,Down-smothered dark,for fifty leagues away.
For fifty leagues!and when the winds were strong For fifty more!But in the olden time These fires were counted as the harbingers Of life-essential storms;since out of smoke And heat there came across the midnight ways Abundant comfort,with upgathered clouds,And runnels babbling of a plenteous fall.
So comes the Southern gale at evenfall (The swift "brick-fielder''of the local folk)About the streets of Sydney,when the dust Lies burnt on glaring windows,and the men Look forth from doors of drouth,and drink the change With thirsty haste and that most thankful cry Of,"Here it is -the cool,bright,blessed rain!''
The hut,I say,was built of bark and slabs,And stood,the centre of a clearing,hemmed By hurdle-yards,and ancients of the blacks;These moped about their lazy fires,and sang Wild ditties of the old days,with a sound Of sorrow,like an everlasting wind,Which mingled with the echoes of the noon,And moaned amongst the noises of the night.
From thence a cattle track,with link to link,Ran off against the fish-pools,to the gap Which sets you face to face with gleaming miles Of broad Orara,winding in amongst Black,barren ridges,where the nether spurs Are fenced about by cotton scrub,and grass Blue-bitten with the salt of many droughts.
'Twas here the shepherd housed him every night,And faced the prospect like a patient soul;
Borne up by some vague hope of better days,And God's fine blessing in his faithful wife,Until the humour of his malady Took cunning changes from the good to bad,And laid him lastly on a bed of death.
Two months thereafter,when the summer heat Had roused the serpent from his rotten lair,And made a noise of locusts in the boughs,It came to this,that as the blood-red sun Of one fierce day of many slanted down Obliquely past the nether jags of peaks And gulfs of mist,the tardy night came vexed By belted clouds,and scuds that wheeled and whirled To left and right about the brazen clifts Of ridges,rigid with a leaden gloom.
Then took the cattle to the forest camps With vacant terror,and the hustled sheep Stood dumb against the hurdles,even like A fallen patch of shadowed mountain snow;And ever through the curlew's call afar The storm grew on,while round the stinted slabs Sharp snaps and hisses came,and went,and came,The huddled tokens of a mighty blast Which ran with an exceeding bitter cry Across the tumbled fragments of the hills,And through the sluices of the gorge and glen.
So,therefore,all about the shepherd's hut That space was mute,save when the fastened dog,Without a kennel,caught a passing glimpse Of firelight moving through the lighted chinks;For then he knew the hints of warmth within,And stood and set his great pathetic eyes,In wind and wet,imploring to be loosed.
Not often now the watcher left the couch Of him she watched;since in his fitful sleep His lips would stir to wayward themes,and close With bodeful catches.Once she moved away,Half-deafened by terrific claps,and stooped,And looked without;to see a pillar dim Of gathered gusts and fiery rain.
Anon The sick man woke,and,startled by the noise,Stared round the room,with dull delirious sight,At this wild thing and that;for through his eyes The place took fearful shapes,and fever showed Strange crosswise lights about his pillow-head.
