An old time favourite this Australian Poem

"My Country" is one of Australia's best known poems and is still recited
in many school classrooms around the country. Verse two is the most
popular. Most Australians know the second verse of this poem.
I can remember learning the second verse when I was in school
and I've always loved it ever since

 

MY COUNTRY

By Dorothea Mackellar

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!

The tragic ringbarked forests,
Stark white beneath 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 crimson 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.

 

Dorothea Mackellar was born in Sydney Australia on July 1st 1885.She was
the only daughter of Sir Charles Kinnaird Mackellar a noted Physician and
Parliamentarian. Dorothea was raised in the city and it was her brothers'
farms near Gunnedah in North West NSW (New South Wales)

that inspired her to write what was and is regarded as bush poetry.

My Country is her best known poem which she wrote when she was 19 years old
and living in England. She was homesick for her homeland of Australia, the
first verse is about England and its country side and the rest of the verses
are about Australia. A lot of people leave the first verse out due to it being
about England and others never knew the first verse existed. The second verse
is the verse most people know as it gives such a beautiful description of
Australia and it's landscape. This poem wasn't published til years later and
was first published in the London Spectator in 1908 with the original title of
Core Of My Heart. It was published again in a volume of Dorothea's poetry
The Closed Door in 1911 this time with the title it has today of My Country.

Dorothea had 4 volumes of her poetry published
The Closed Door in 1911 .. featuring the poem My Country
The Witchmaid in 1914
Dreamharbour in 1923
Fancy Dress in 1926

Dorothea Mackellar was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire
(OBE Award) in 1968 for her contribution to Australian Literature. Just 2 weeks
after receiving her OBE she passed away on January 14th 1968, aged 82 years

In 1984 a Gunnedah resident created the "Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards"
which has grown to one of the most popular nationwide poetry competitions
for Australian school students.

 

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Kezzakat Kreations 2007