They're burning off at the Rampadells,
The tawny flames uprise,
With greedy licking around the trees;
The fierce breath sears our eyes.
From cores already grown furnace-hot -
The logs are well alight!
We fling more wood where the flameless heart
Is throbbing red and white.
The fire bites deep in that beating heart,
The creamy smoke-wreaths ooze
From cracks and knot-holes along the trunk
To melt in greys and blues.
The young horned moon has gone from the sky,
And night has settled down;
A red glare shows from the Rampadells,
Grim as a burning town.
Full seven fathoms above the rest
A tree stands, great and old,
A red-hot column whence fly the sparks,
One ceaseless shower of gold.
All hail the king of the fire before
He sway and crack and crash
To earth - for surely tomorrow's sun
Will see him white fine ash.
The king in his robe of falling stars,
No trace shall leave behind,
And where he stood with his silent court,
The wheat shall bow to the wind.
Notes
Poem Notes:
From Dorotheas' first published volume "The Closed Door", 1911.
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Comments
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14th August 2004
As a child I learned "They're burning off at the Rampadells". Through the next 50 years I have wanted to find that poem and relive the joy that it gave me at the age of 10 years. I did not know the authoress (should I say to my shame) and could only remember that first line and the vivid picture in my mind of a fire in the outback somewhere. Today, thanks to the unbelievable power of the Internet - a fantasy beyond the dreams of the most creative minds of 1955, I have rediscovered my long-lost joy. To emphasize my point, I confess to being a high-school Mathematics teacher and to declaring one day to my librarian colleague that "no self-respecting Maths teacher is literate", and yet this thick literary head of mine retained somewhere in its recesses the memory of the joy I experienced as a young boy of this treasure of Australian verse. Even as I write this, I am deeply aware that something special has happened to me today. If a mathematician can rejoice in the remembrance of childhood poetry, then maybe there is hope yet for the world. I hope that whoever is reading this shares my pleasure. Not everyone would understand. Allan R.P. Steele -
it was great
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