One Christmas-time, when months of drought
Had parched the western creeks,
The bush-fires started in the north
And travelled south for weeks.
At night, along the river side,
The scene was grand and strange ;
The hill-fires looked like lighted streets
Of cities in the range.
Tho cattle tracks between the trees
Were like long, dusty aisles,
And, on a sudden breeze, the fire
Would sweep along for miles;
Like sounds of distant musketry
It crackled through the brakes,
And o’er the flat of silvery grass
It hissed like angry snakes.
It leapt across the flowing streams,
And raced o’er pastures broad ;
It climbed the trees and lit the boughs,
And through the scrub it roared.
The bees fell stifled in tho smoke
Or perished in their hives,
And, with the stock, the kangaroos
Went flying for their lives.
AND as Henry Lawson also wrote;
’’Although the struggle maybe grim, ‘tis Australia that knows
That her children will fight while the Waratah grows‘’
Nelle's journey 