The Bush Fire Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDAEAA FGHAAAIJKL MNOPA QAARSTNDUVWA AXANYZA2B2C2D2 AE2F2AALAG2H2A TAAI2J2K2AL2AAAI2M2 AB2AAAYN2ADO2L2AADC2 P2Q2R2AA AS2AT2IU2M2V2DVAI2XW 2X2A2Y2AZ2 NA3Z2ZL2AZ2C2Z2ABB3Z 2AAX2B2AAC3I2 AC3D3AAZ2NZ2E3AZ2F3Z 2NVMTIS nine o clock to bed cried Egremont | A |
Who with his youthful household for tis now | B |
Long since inhabited a lonely home | C |
In the Australian wilderness that then | D |
As with an unshorn fleece of gloomy wood | A |
Robed the vast bulk of all the mighty Isle | E |
But ere retiring finally he went | A |
Forth as his wont was to survey the night | A |
- | |
Twas clear and silent and the stirless woods | F |
Seemed dreaming in the witch light of the moon | G |
As like a boat of stained pearl she hung | H |
Amid the ridges of a wavy cloud | A |
The only cloud in heaven While Egremont | A |
Looked thus abroad observingly he marked | A |
All around him listing the horizon s verge | I |
A broad unusual upward glaring gleam | J |
Such a drear radiance as the setting sun | K |
Effuses when the atmosphere is stormy | L |
- | |
What this might be he wondered but not long | M |
Divining soon the cause a vast Bush Fire | N |
But deeming it too distant yet for harm | O |
During the night betiding to repose | P |
With his bed faring household he retired | A |
- | |
Sound was their sleep for honesty of life | Q |
Is somewhat lumpish when tis once a bed | A |
And now the darkness of the night was past | A |
When with the dreams of Egremont a strange | R |
And momently approaching roar began | S |
To mingle and insinuate through them more | T |
And more of its own import till a Fire | N |
Huge as the world was their sole theme and then | D |
He started from his sleep to find the type | U |
A warning for what else however terrible | V |
Might breathe with a vitality so fierce | W |
As that which reigned without | A |
- | |
Scarce did he wait | A |
To clothe himself ere forth he rushed and lo | X |
Within the circling forest he beheld | A |
A vast and billowy belt of writhing fire | N |
That shed a wild and lurid splendour up | Y |
Against the whitening dawn come raging on | Z |
Raging and roaring as with ten thousand tongues | A2 |
That prophesied destruction On it came | B2 |
A dreadful apparition such as Fear | C2 |
Conceives when dreaming of the front of hell | D2 |
- | |
No time was there to lose Up up he cried | A |
To all the house Instantly all within | E2 |
Was haste and wonder and in briefest space | F2 |
The whole roused family were staring out | A |
In speechless admiration such as kept | A |
Even Terror dormant till more urgently | L |
The voice of Egremont again was heard | A |
Lose not a moment Follow me at once | G2 |
Each with whatever he can grasp of use | H2 |
And carry unincumbered | A |
- | |
Right before | T |
A narrow strip of clearing like a glade | A |
Stretched out tow rds a bald summit Thitherward | A |
The perilled people now were hurrying all | I2 |
While in their front beneath the ridge a dense | J2 |
Extent of brushwood into which the Fire s | K2 |
Bright teeth were eating hungrily still brought | A |
The danger nearer Shall they reach that hill | L2 |
Unscathed their only refuge Will they speed | A |
Past the red rushing peril Onward yet | A |
And onward till at length the summit s gained | A |
And halting they look back in safety all | I2 |
Though breathless | M2 |
- | |
But no sooner had they past | A |
That fearful brush than a vast swathe of flame | B2 |
Lifted and hurried forward by the wind | A |
Over their very passage track was pitched | A |
With a loud thud like thunder into it | A |
With such a thud as the sea swell gives up | Y |
From under the ledges of some hanging cliff | N2 |
And in an instant all its depth of shade | A |
Was as a lake of hell And hark as then | D |
Even like a ghastly pyramid its mass | O2 |
Of flames went surging up up with them still | L2 |
A cry of mortal agony was heard | A |
Ascending all so terrible indeed | A |
That they who heard it never until then | D |
Might deem a voice so earnest in its fear | C2 |
So strenuous in its anguish could have being | P2 |
In the live bosom of the suffering Earth | Q2 |
But soon did they divine even to their loss | R2 |
Its import there a giant steed their best | A |
Had taken refuge there to die | A |
- | |
All grouped | A |
In safety now upon that hill s bare top | S2 |
Egremont and his household looked abroad | A |
Astonished at the terrors of the time | T2 |
Soon sunk their rooftree in the fiery surge | I |
Which entering next a high grassed bottom thick | U2 |
With bark ringed trees all standing bleak and leafless | M2 |
Tenfold more terrible in its ravage grew | V2 |
Upclimbing to their very tops As when | D |
Upon some day of national festival | V |
From the tall spars of the ship crowded port | A |
Innumerous flags in one direction all | I2 |
Tongue outward writhing in the wind even so | X |
From those dry boles where still the dead bark clings | W2 |
And from their multifarious mass above | X2 |
Of leafless boughs myriads of flaming tongues | A2 |
Lick upward or aloft in narrowing flakes | Y2 |
Stream out and thence upon the tortured blast | A |
Bicker and flap in one inconstant blaze | Z2 |
- | |
Scared forward by the roaring of the Fire | N |
A flight of parrots o er the upper ridge | A3 |
Comes whizzing and then sweeping down alights | Z2 |
Amid the oaks that fringe the base of yon | Z |
Precipitous terrace being deterred from still | L2 |
Proceeding by the smoke uprolled in front | A |
Like a dim moving range of spectral mountains | Z2 |
There they abide and listen in their fear | C2 |
To the tremendous riot of the flames | Z2 |
Beyond the ridge line that keep nearing fast | A |
Though yet unseen from thence unseen till now | B |
Furiously seizing on the withered grove | B3 |
That tops the terrace all whose spiry shafts | Z2 |
Rush upward and then culminating bend | A |
Sheer o er the oaks wherein the birds are lodged | A |
All are in flight at once but from above | X2 |
As suddenly a mightier burst of flame | B2 |
Outsheeteth o er them Down they dip but it | A |
Keeps swooping with them even to the ground | A |
Where in a moment after all are seen | C3 |
To writhe convulsed blasted and plumeless all | I2 |
- | |
Thus through the day the conflagration raged | A |
And when the wings of night o erspread the scene | C3 |
Not even their starry blazonry wore such | D3 |
An aggregated glory to the eye | A |
As did the blazing dead wood of the forest | A |
On all hands blazing Mighty sapless gums | Z2 |
Amid their living kindred stood all fire | N |
Boles branches all like flaming ghosts of trees | Z2 |
Come from the past within the whiteman s pale | E3 |
To typify a doom Such was the prospect | A |
Illuminated cities were but jests | Z2 |
Compared to it for splendor But enough | F3 |
Where are the words to paint the million shapes | Z2 |
And unimaginable freaks of Fire | N |
When holding thus its monster carnival | V |
In the primeval forest all night long | M |
Charles Harpur
(1)
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