A Bush Night

I remember the tilt of the deep canvas chairs, and then men
sitting idle,
And out in the paddocks a hoof going past and the click of a
bridle,
And everywhere else the weird silence that lay upon the sandhill
and clearing,
Till the hum of a questing mosquito beat loud like a drum on
our hearing.
I remember the pale summer lightning that flashed on the purple
horizon,
Full-sweep like the sword-play of giants, the dark to bedeck
and bedizen
With gold for the path of the planets; and far by the creek
I remember
A red fire that leapt and lay down, and died out in disconsolate
ember:
The camp of some lonely wayfarer. The heat of the night
hovered o’er us;
Then loud from the marge of the distant lagoon came the
clamouring chorus
Of bull-frogs that moaned to a waterless sky for the rain cloud
denied them.
Shrivelled and shamed stood the sunflowers, and prayed to the
shadows to hide them.
The stars like cut gems in the darkness above the dim pepper-
tree twinkled,
And somewhere beyond the burnt sandhill a cowbell incenssantly
tinkled.
The heat laid a garment above us, no wind set the vine leaves
a-quiver
That fenced the board-boarded verandah, no breeze blown
across from the river
Brought coolness or comfort or promise; the bull-frogs ceased
suddenly singing;
Then sounded the creek of a cane chair, and one from among
us up-springing
Woke the wide boards with a jangle of loose-buckled spurrowels
trailing,
And clanked to the water-bag hung from the roof the vine-
trellised railing,
Clinked the tin pannikin, dipped it, and holding it brimmingly
lofted,
Murmured, “The Lord send us rain and fat horses!” then
tipped up and quaffed it.