The Fire at Ross's Farm

"The Fire at Ross's Farm"
by Henry Lawson
Written	1890
First published in	The Bulletin
Country	Australia
Language	English
Publication date	6 December 1890
Full text
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"The Fire at Ross's Farm" (1890) is a poem by Australian poet Henry Lawson.^[1]

It was originally published in The Bulletin on 6 December 1890 and subsequently reprinted in several of the author's other collections, other newspapers and periodicals and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.^[1]

Writing about the "Inspiration of the Bush" in Australian verse, a critic in The Brisbane Courier noted that "the most graphic account of a bush-fire ever written is certainly that given in Lawson's 'Fire at Ross's Farm,' which is a masterpiece."^[2]

In an essay titled "'As only natives ride': Lawson's Adversity, Private Property and Australian Culture" writer Neil Boyack notes that the poem "catalogues aspects of a romanticised Australian identity: assumed mateship, hardy toughness, hearts of gold, a sense of fairness and adaptation to landscape. But through Lawson's simple, cut-to-the-bone prose and word power he creates harshness, uncertainty and a violence that at once dispels this romance."^[3]

After the poem's initial publication in The Bulletin it was reprinted as follows:

• Short Stories in Prose and Verse by Henry Lawson, L. Lawson, 1894^[4]
• In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1900
• The Children's Lawson edited by Colin Roderick, Angus and Robertson, 1949^[5]
• The Australian Christmas edited by Frank Cusack, Heinemann, 1966^[6]
• A Campfire Yarn : Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, Lansdowne, 1984^[7]
• Henry Lawson : An Illustrated Treasury edited by Glenys Smith, Lansdowne, 1985^[8]
• A Collection of Australian Bush Verse Peter Antill-Rose, 1989^[9]
• Family Ties : Australian Poems of the Family edited by Jennifer Strauss, Oxford University Press, 1998^[10]
• Classic Australian Verse edited by Maggie Pinkney, Five Mile Press, 2001^[11]

• 1890 in Australian literature
• 1890 in poetry