A Death In The Bush Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFG HIJK LMNOPQ KRSTPUV PWXYZA2 QB2PC2PPD2 D2C2E2F2G2H2 PI2PJ2K2L2M2K N2O2PP2PPP KD2PQ2R2S2T2 U2V2PW2X2PY2Z2PV PA3B3C3D3PE3OH2PF2 F3G3PPJPH3 I3A3PA2J3K3L3 L3PKPBZM3H2 N3OZA2O3P PP3O T2M3PQ3R3OV2S3T3L3 H2U3V3PPW3X3Y3 KZ3PA4B4Z L2C4D4PE4PR2L2R2KF4P PPYPPPD2KG4C3H4 I4PF3T2 J4PG4PK3H2K4A2The hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs | A |
That wore the marks of many rains and showed | B |
Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot | C |
Moreover round the bases of the bark | D |
Were left the tracks of flying forest fires | E |
As you may see them on the lower bole | F |
Of every elder of the native woods | G |
- | |
For ere the early settlers came and stocked | H |
These wilds with sheep and kine the grasses grew | I |
So that they took the passing pilgrim in | J |
And whelmed him like a running sea from sight | K |
- | |
And therefore through the fiercer summer months | L |
While all the swamps were rotten while the flats | M |
Were baked and broken when the clayey rifts | N |
Yawned wide half choked with drifted herbage past | O |
Spontaneous flames would burst from thence and race | P |
Across the prairies all day long | Q |
- | |
At night | K |
The winds were up and then with four fold speed | R |
A harsh gigantic growth of smoke and fire | S |
Would roar along the bottoms in the wake | T |
Of fainting flocks of parrots wallaroos | P |
And 'wildered wild things scattering right and left | U |
For safety vague throughout the general gloom | V |
- | |
Anon the nearer hillside growing trees | P |
Would take the surges thus from bough to bough | W |
Was borne the flaming terror Bole and spire | X |
Rank after rank now pillared ringed and rolled | Y |
In blinding blaze stood out against the dead | Z |
Down smothered dark for fifty leagues away | A2 |
- | |
For fifty leagues and when the winds were strong | Q |
For fifty more But in the olden time | B2 |
These fires were counted as the harbingers | P |
Of life essential storms since out of smoke | C2 |
And heat there came across the midnight ways | P |
Abundant comfort with upgathered clouds | P |
And runnels babbling of a plenteous fall | D2 |
- | |
So comes the southern gale at evenfall | D2 |
The swift brick fielder of the local folk | C2 |
About the streets of Sydney when the dust | E2 |
Lies burnt on glaring windows and the men | F2 |
Look forth from doors of drouth and drink the change | G2 |
With thirsty haste and that most thankful cry | H2 |
Of 'Here it is the cool bright blessed rain ' | - |
- | |
The hut I say was built of bark and slabs | P |
And stood the centre of a clearing hemmed | I2 |
By hurdle yards and ancients of the blacks | P |
These moped about their lazy fires and sang | J2 |
Wild ditties of the old days with a sound | K2 |
Of sorrow like an everlasting wind | L2 |
Which mingled with the echoes of the noon | M2 |
And moaned amongst the noises of the night | K |
- | |
From thence a cattle track with link to link | N2 |
Ran off against the fish pools to the gap | O2 |
Which sets you face to face with gleaming miles | P |
Of broad Orara winding in amongst | P2 |
Black barren ridges where the nether spurs | P |
Are fenced about by cotton scrub and grass | P |
Blue bitten with the salt of many droughts | P |
- | |
'Twas here the shepherd housed him every night | K |
And faced the prospect like a patient soul | D2 |
Borne up by some vague hope of better days | P |
And God's fine blessing in his faithful wife | Q2 |
Until the humour of his malady | R2 |
Took cunning changes from the good to bad | S2 |
And laid him lastly on a bed of death | T2 |
- | |
Two months thereafter when the summer heat | U2 |
Had roused the serpent from his rotten lair | V2 |
And made a noise of locusts in the boughs | P |
It came to this that as the blood red sun | W2 |
Of one fierce day of many slanted down | X2 |
Obliquely past the nether jags of peaks | P |
And gulfs of mist the tardy night came vexed | Y2 |
By belted clouds and scuds that wheeled and whirled | Z2 |
To left and right about the brazen clifts | P |
Of ridges rigid with a leaden gloom | V |
- | |
Then took the cattle to the forest camps | P |
With vacant terror and the hustled sheep | A3 |
Stood dumb against the hurdles even like | B3 |
A fallen patch of shadowed mountain snow | C3 |
And ever through the curlew's call afar | D3 |
The storm grew on while round the stinted slabs | P |
Sharp snaps and hisses came and went and came | E3 |
The huddled tokens of a mighty blast | O |
Which ran with an exceeding bitter cry | H2 |
Across the tumbled fragments of the hills | P |
And through the sluices of the gorge and glen | F2 |
- | |
So therefore all about the shepherd's hut | F3 |
That space was mute save when the fastened dog | G3 |
Without a kennel caught a passing glimpse | P |
Of firelight moving through the lighted chinks | P |
For then he knew the hints of warmth within | J |
And stood and set his great pathetic eyes | P |
In wind and wet imploring to be loosed | H3 |
- | |
Not often now the watcher left the couch | I3 |
Of him she watched since in his fitful sleep | A3 |
His lips would stir to wayward themes and close | P |
With bodeful catches Once she moved away | A2 |
Half deafened by terrific claps and stooped | J3 |
And looked without to see a pillar dim | K3 |
Of gathered gusts and fiery rain | L3 |
- | |
Anon | L3 |
The sick man woke and startled by the noise | P |
Stared round the room with dull delirious sight | K |
At this wild thing and that for through his eyes | P |
The place took fearful shapes and fever showed | B |
Strange crosswise lights about his pillow head | Z |
He catching there at some phantasmic help | M3 |
Sat upright on the bolster with a cry | H2 |
Of 'Where is Jesus It is bitter cold ' | - |
And then because the thunder calls outside | N3 |
Were mixed for him with slanders of the past | O |
He called his weeping wife by name and said | Z |
'Come closer darling We shall speed away | A2 |
Across the seas and seek some mountain home | O3 |
Shut in from liars and the wicked words | P |
That track us day and night and night and day ' | - |
So waned the sad refrain And those poor lips | P |
Whose latest phrases were for peace grew mute | P3 |
And into everlasting silence passed | O |
- | |
As fares a swimmer who hath lost his breath | T2 |
In 'wildering seas afar from any help | M3 |
Who fronting Death can never realize | P |
The dreadful Presence but is prone to clutch | Q3 |
At every weed upon the weltering wave | R3 |
So fared the watcher poring o'er the last | O |
Of him she loved with dazed and stupid stare | V2 |
Half conscious of the sudden loss and lack | S3 |
Of all that bound her life but yet without | T3 |
The power to take her mighty sorrow in | L3 |
- | |
Then came a patch or two of starry sky | H2 |
And through a reef of cloven thunder cloud | U3 |
The soft moon looked a patient face beyond | V3 |
The fierce impatient shadows of the slopes | P |
And the harsh voices of the broken hills | P |
A patient face and one which came and wrought | W3 |
A lovely silence like a silver mist | X3 |
Across the rainy relics of the storm | Y3 |
- | |
For in the breaks and pauses of her light | K |
The gale died out in gusts yet evermore | Z3 |
About the roof tree on the dripping eaves | P |
The damp wind loitered and a fitful drift | A4 |
Sloped through the silent curtains and athwart | B4 |
The dead | Z |
- | |
There when the glare had dropped behind | L2 |
A mighty ridge of gloom the woman turned | C4 |
And sat in darkness face to face with God | D4 |
And said 'I know ' she said 'that Thou art wise | P |
That when we build and hope and hope and build | E4 |
And see our best things fall it comes to pass | P |
For evermore that we must turn to Thee | R2 |
And therefore now because I cannot find | L2 |
The faintest token of Divinity | R2 |
In this my latest sorrow let Thy light | K |
Inform mine eyes so I may learn to look | F4 |
On something past the sight which shuts and blinds | P |
And seems to drive me wholly Lord from Thee ' | - |
- | |
Now waned the moon beyond complaining depths | P |
And as the dawn looked forth from showery woods | P |
Whereon had dropped a hint of red and gold | Y |
There went about the crooked cavern eaves | P |
Low flute like echoes with a noise of wings | P |
And waters flying down far hidden fells | P |
Then might be seen the solitary owl | D2 |
Perched in the clefts scared at the coming light | K |
And staring outward like a sea shelled thing | G4 |
Chased to his cover by some bright fierce foe | C3 |
As at a monster in the middle waste | H4 |
- | |
At last the great kingfisher came and called | I4 |
Across the hollows loud with early whips | P |
And lighted laughing on the shepherd's hut | F3 |
And roused the widow from a swoon like death | T2 |
- | |
This day and after it was noised abroad | J4 |
By blacks and straggling horsemen on the roads | P |
That he was dead 'who had been sick so long' | G4 |
There flocked a troop from far surrounding runs | P |
To see their neighbour and to bury him | K3 |
And men who had forgotten how to cry | H2 |
Rough flinty fellows of the native bush | K4 |
Now learned the bitter way | A2 |
Henry Kendall
(1)
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