A little something for Woftam
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:32 pm
My Country by Dorothea Mackellar
(1885 _ 1968)
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey_blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel_sea,
Her beauty and her terror _
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring_barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire_misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree_tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die_
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold_
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal_hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land_
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand_
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Thank You
MJ
(1885 _ 1968)
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey_blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel_sea,
Her beauty and her terror _
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring_barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire_misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree_tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die_
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold_
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal_hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land_
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand_
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Thank You
MJ
.
