Black Thursday (6th February 1851)

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ALANM
Posts: 96
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 2:57 pm
Location: North Queensland

Black Thursday (6th February 1851)

Post by ALANM » Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:29 pm

Black Thursday (6th February 1851)
(By Alan McCosker March 2020 _ edited November 2022)

The country was a furnace, just waiting to be lit;
a campfire unnattended, said to be the cause of it.
All through 1850, drought had dried and browned the land,
in February ’51, Black Thursday dealt a fiery hand.

Searing hot gales from the North, fanned the raging flame,
as from the Plenty Ranges, the demonic bushfire came.
It swept across Victoria, Dantes Inferno off the leash,
none could stand before it; twelve died in the smouldering ash.

From way out in the Wimmera, from Macedon to Geelong,
from Portland ‘round to Heidelberg and on to Dandenong;
from Western Port to Gippsland, nearly all was turned to ash,
smoke and embers filled the air, as Black Thursday plied the lash.

In Melbourne Town the day began, with scorching wind and cloudless sky
but by noon the town was under, dust and smoke clouds roiling high.
The heat rose past one hundred, the wind did moan and wail,
and the streets became deserted, as people sheltered from the gale.

Through the day the heat kept rising, the gales grew even stronger,
out in Bass Strait, twenty miles at sea, embers rained down on a Schooner.
Thick black smoke and cinders blew, way down to the Island State,
they could see the embers, taste the smoke; only guess as to their fate.

A settler on the Diamond Creek, lost his wife and five young children,
turned to ash before his eyes, a horror; to never be forgotten.
At Barrabool three lives were lost and three more at Macedon,
how many other lives were lost, is still today unknown.

Swag men and miners roamed the land, seeking out a better day,
how many of them perished, there were none left to say.
Like the Squatters and the Settlers, they too, fled before the flames,
most likely not all found safe refuge; and perished on their claims.

They say it burned a million sheep, left charred piles on the ground
and cattle by the thousands, fenced in, huddled as they burned.
The Fauna of the bushland, could not escape the conflagration
and bushfolk ran to water courses, to escape incineration.

There were no airborne tankers then, no fire trucks with lights a’flashin',
just brave people with wet bags and bushes, at the flames were vainly bashin'.
Black Thursday roared and ate them up, burned the very air they breathed,
burned itself into their memory, as Hell; issued forth a living, breathing, Fiend.

When at last they could return, to their smouldering blackened homesteads,
to charcoal corpses of their animals, clustered 'round dry streambeds;
saw their crops and gardens vanished, dams and water troughs boiled dry,
most of those who had survived, just stared; few had the strength to cry.

When the fire was finally done, the people met at Geelong Town
and pledged to give relief to those, whose homes had been burned down.
Love and understanding, was there for all those who were grieving
and this spirit still lives on today; each time the Fiend, comes breathing.

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