SOURCE: Ackland, Michael. “God's Sublime Order in Harpur's ‘The Creek of the Four Graves.’” Australian Literary Studies 11, no. 3 (May 1984): 355-70.

In the following essay, Ackland compares Harpur's treatment of the union of man, nature, and God in “The Creek of the Four Graves” with that of poet John Milton.

‘The Creek of the Four Graves’ has long been a rallying-point for the defence of Charles Harpur's poetic standing. Published separately in 1845 and reissued in the 1853 collection entitled The Bushrangers: A Play in Five Acts and Other Poems, it was singled out for special praise by the Maitland Mercury, while Daniel Deniehy writing in the Empire felt that it would ‘best support’ Harpur's ‘claims to a laurel’.¹ Even severe critics of the self-appointed bard of Australia have acknowledged its power. G. B. Barton, for instance, in his pioneering survey of Literature in New South Wales (1866) praised the poem for...