A Death In The Bush Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Henry Kendall

A Death In The Bush Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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The 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