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 rugged 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.
~Dorothea Mackellar~
1885 ~ 1968
After "Waltzing Matilda", this would probably be one of the best known Australian poems and (in my years at least) it was taught to nearly every child at school. Sadly, many choose to omit the first verse, because it relates to Australia's English settlers and thereby actually altering the original words of a ©Copyright protected poem. Sometimes this poem is simply called "I Love A Sunburnt Country", or "A Sunburnt Country", and with the exception of the first verse, is very Australian. It shows a great love for this country and whatever it may hold, and the final verse really tells how many Australians feel about the place they call home. Contrary to popular belief, this poem is NOT in Public Domain and under Australian Copyright Laws is still under ©Copyright. The Foundation that oversees Dorothy Mackellar's estate is responsible for granting permission to use any of Dorothea Mackellar's writings. Permission must be granted before you
can legally use this poem. You can request permission by sending an E-Mail to the current Copyright Holder, Pippa Masson of Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd, by clicking on the E-Mail Link Below.
I thank you Pippa, for granting me permission to show this wonderful poem on my web site.
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