The Fire at Ross's Farm

"The Fire at Ross's Farm" is a poem by Australian poet Henry Lawson.
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.

Critical reception

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."
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."

Publication history

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