My Country
My Country, our country indeed. I wanted to start the story of our recent journey through our country, in fact, some country Queensland but mostly New South Wales with a bit of a bang and I couldn't find any better shot than this one at the grain silos in Gunnedah, NSW which feature this marvellous mural of Dorothea Mackellar and her famous poem, "My Country".
I don't know what they teach at school today, but there wouldn't be anyone of my generation who didn't study and know her great poem. But I never realised to my regret in a way (obviously forgot) that the verse which no doubt stays is our memory the most is actually verse 2......"I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains....." Here is the full poem.
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!
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
There is no doubt we saw and experienced much of this during our short trip. Here finally is a link in Wikipedia to the life of Dorothea Mackellar.
My Country
My Country, our country indeed. I wanted to start the story of our recent journey through our country, in fact, some country Queensland but mostly New South Wales with a bit of a bang and I couldn't find any better shot than this one at the grain silos in Gunnedah, NSW which feature this marvellous mural of Dorothea Mackellar and her famous poem, "My Country".
I don't know what they teach at school today, but there wouldn't be anyone of my generation who didn't study and know her great poem. But I never realised to my regret in a way (obviously forgot) that the verse which no doubt stays is our memory the most is actually verse 2......"I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains....." Here is the full poem.
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!
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
There is no doubt we saw and experienced much of this during our short trip. Here finally is a link in Wikipedia to the life of Dorothea Mackellar.