The Sun has signed his nightly armistice,
Drawn a dark cloud across his crimson breast,
And gone to war with other lands than this,
Lowering his splendid banners from the west.
Down the world's edge the summer lightnings play,
Their broadswords flashing o'er departed day.
Night comes, long sought for; but in coming brings
No breeze to stir the leafage of the vine.
A bullfrog mutters. A mosquito sings.
White-hot the stars on cloudless purple shine.
In stifling silence like the hush of death,
Gripped by the throat. Earth labours to draw breath.
Booted and spurred, brown arms to the shoulder bare,
A keen-eyed watcher turns his anxious gaze
To where the dim gold of a distant glare
Is faintly mingled with the star-lit haze.
The pale glow reddens, mounting high and higher -
Through hollowed hands rings out, reverberant, "Fire!"
Swiftly the homestead wakes; oaths sound, spurs clank;
A stockman at the hut flings down his cards :
"Fire! - get the horses!" "Where?" "The Ten-mile tank!
Here, up you go ! I'll open up the yards!"
He swings the horse-boy to his bare-backed seat;
The sandhill echoes to the night mare's feet.
The dark is filled with clatter of flung rails,
And shout and question. Then a stern command :
" Fill up the cask! Look out those green-hide flails!
Call up the cook and get some grub in hand !
Now look alive; run out that waggonette
And fling those bags aboard - and see they're wet!"
The muffled hoofbeats on the sandhill sound;
The crack of whip comes snapping from the dark;
With snort and whinny when the mob wheels round
Where all the sheep-dogs tug their chains and bark.
The black boy clinging to old Possum's mane
Rides hard to stop them breaking back again.
He brings them up full speed before the whip;
The yard-posts rattle as they crush and climb.
" Confound you !" yells the super, " you black rip,
Go slow, and give the blasted horses time!"
A moment later they are in the yard
And Jake leads off the night mare blowing hard.
The boundary riders through the slip-rails swarm
To catch their horses in the dark and dust;
Each has a snaffle bridle on his arm
With throat-lash dangling, ready to adjust.
The sweating brutes ring round and dodge and wheel,
With here a snort and there a vicious squeal.
"Now, then, go steady!" shouts the overseer,
"One at a time, or we'll be here all night.
Here's Ruby, Bob ! Here, Jack, stop Buccaneer;
Block him! Mind that mare's heels. Now, hold him tight! -
Come on, there, with those blasted winkers, Jake,
And put some life in you, for the devil's sake!"
Outside, the saddles are flung on in haste;
Men grope for girths and buckle them by guess.
" Look sharp, now, boys! ye've got no time to waste.
The sooner there, our work will be the less!"
He swings a long leg over old Bluebell -
" Now, stick to me; sit down, and ride like H - l!"
There is a sudden trampling of swift hoofs,
A rustle as the buddah bushes part,
An answering echo in the station roofs,
Then silence till you'd hear your beating heart.
The cook stands listening, scratches his grey head,
And disappears indoors to set his bread.
Through the horse paddock, past the cattle yard,
Cleaving the starlight of the wool-shed plain,
Stumbling in flood-made hoof-tracks dried and hard,
Dave leads the way and gives old Bluebell rein.
Behind him, touching stirrups clashed in tune,
His men ride loosely, cursing for a moon.
White-hot, white-hot the busy South stars burn.
The night leans low upon them as they ride,
With moist, hot, kissing mouth that none may spurn
And stifling arms that none may thrust aside.
Beneath the reins a foam, cream-yellow, breaks;
And from the bits white foam comes back in flakes.
The leader steadies at the Ten-mile gate
And pauses, looking with an anxious eye
To where against a bank of purple slate
The dull red glow spreads wide upon the sky;
A sudden smoke rolls up. He mutters, turning
To those behind him - "That's the lignum burning!"
The gate swings open and the troop rides through
Across a ridge set close with dense young pine;
And now each horseman has enough to do .
To dodge the saplings on his leader's line,
Who, with bent head upon the brown mare's mane,
Threads the thick scrub full gallop with loose rein.
The plumed boughs whip their shoulders as they stoop,
The supple stems strike here and there a knee,
A low top twines them in a bending loop,
A shirt sleeve flutters as they graze a tree;
But through it all that demon leader rides
As though the shadows were his goblin guides.
At last, emerging from the pine-scrub patch,
They reach the plain, some swiftly, some more slow;
And spurs and stirrup bars and bit-rings catch
Amid the dark a sudden golden glow.
There comes a roar as of a rock-faced sea :
The red gods trumpeting their majesty.
Westward a long low line creeps down the grass;
But in the forefront where the lignums grow
Stand the massed squadrons that no man may pass,
The steep red ranks no man may overthrow.
The stars grow faint before them. Like a pack
Of baffled wolves the shadows are flung back.
No king e'er bore such banners; red on gold
And gold on red they whip the summer sky;
Pale pennons streaming, crimson flags unrolled
And lined and lettered where the smoke-wisps fly,
Banks of gold banners blazing forth to lead
The red-cloaked rider and the dark-maned steed.
No wind is stirring in the sandhill trees
But in the open where the red knights ride
Their cloaks are twisted by an errant breeze
The moving squadrons have themselves supplied.
As when across a still air huge wings going
Disturb the calm and set some strange wind blowing.
With measured step and ordered swing and sweep,
As scythemen through an English meadow pass,
The red-cloaked swordsmen, riding fifty deep,
Beat down the wild flowers and the barley grass;
While now and then one spurs beyond the rest
With hate all quivering on his golden crest.
The brown mare. Bluebell, lifting up her head,
Shakes her wet flanks and whinnies to the fire,
As though somewhere within the ranks of red
A smoke-maned stallion answered her desire.
Loud trumpets call; banner on banner reels.
Blind in the flames a half-burnt rabbit squeals.
"Well, here's your ballroom!" says the overseer;
"So take your partners and begin the dance !
She's burning on a five-mile frontage here,
And if the wind gets up we've got no chance!"
The men slip from their saddles one by one,
Break boughs to beat with, and the fight's begun.
And now the night looks down on desperate war,
The clash of nature with the pride of man.
The fire leaps forward with a louder roar,
Her ten-foot champions riding in the van.
Before her red steeds rolls a wave of heat
Blown by their nostrils, scattered by their feet.
The eager bushmen, with their brown arms bare,
And swarthy foreheads dropping grimy sweat,
With eyes that smart beneath the scorching glare,
And blackened hands to their fierce labour set,
Take the red sword blades on their make-shift shields
As heroes might in deadlier battle fields.
Shoulder to shoulder in the smoke they strive,
Now rushing in to strike, now leaping back
As serried foemen through their thin ranks drive
And break and scatter them in flank attack.
Yet, still unbeaten and still undismayed,
They form once more and meet them blade to blade.
And now the fire gains ground, now suffers rout
Before the resolute onset, till a breeze
Breaks from the mulga ranges further out
And stirs the silver of the myall trees,
Whips the red stallions into prouder life
And bids them plunge more wildly in the strife.
The noblest courage now can nought avail
Against the trumpets and the trampling heat;
When fire and wind join forces to assail
The bravest fighters must accept defeat.
Along the line the leader's order runs :
"Back to the sandhill; for we're beat, my sons!"
With hot sweat smarting in their reddened eyes,
With black, burnt arms full of a weary ache,
The men leap back and loose their horses' ties,
And leave the long grass for the fire to take.
Then each the canvas at his saddle seeks,
And drinks, and drinks, and drinksand no one speaks.
The tall grass ceases where the sand begins.
Here ringbarked box-trees stand, a ghostly guard;
Here are green bushes where the spider spins;
Here grass is short, and sheep paths trodden hard.
Full well they knowthat smoke-grimed, weary band -
Here, would they make it, they must make their stand.
The ramping squadrons, freed from all restraint,
And lashed to fury by a master new,
Roar through the lignum while their hot hoofs paint
The ground behind them in a darker hue.
On, on and on, the rolling phalanx comes
With screaming bugles and loud-threatening drums.
A gold sword flashes and a red hoof smites,
A cloak of crimson on the wind is whirled,
The foremost box-tree is a blaze of lights,
Another banner on the dusk unfurled.
In the tall hollow trunk the red tongues roar,
Voicing their triumph and the lust of war.
From stem to stem the hate-spun hoof-sparks fly,
Grim heralds of the hot and hastening swords;
Below them the red stallions thunder by
Bearing the red-gold splendour of their lords.
The great trees groan, and rend, and fall in twain,
And crash their burning length along the plain.
Then, as though wearied by their own success,
The red resistless riders check their steeds,
The swords are lowered and the shouts grow less,
The banners trail among the smouldering weeds.
The furious forces of the fire grow slack
For want of foemen worthy of attack.
" Lay in, and let her have it now, my lads I"
The bushmen wipe the sweat drops from their brows,
And, as the gold wood splinters to the adze,
The gold flame scatters to their flogging boughs.
Foot after foot the ground is forced and won,
The flags are trampled, and the fight is done.
The sky grows clear where late the smoke-manes wreathed,
No more the red cloaks whirl, the loud hoofs drum;
All down the line the golden swords are sheathed,
All down the line the tasselled bugles dumb.
Where the thin herbage on the sandhill lies
The last knight staggers, drops his blade, and dies.
The dark comes down on warm and drowsy wings;
The dark and the deep silence. Here and there
A lone scout of the last battalion swings
High on a burning stem a broadsword bare;
And now and then a spark against the sky
Shows red, as though some loose horse galloped by.
