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!
The stark, white, ring-barked forests, 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.
Drawn by W. S. Wemyss.J
Far Inland
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 againThe 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 greennessThat 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
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath saidThis is my own, my native land;
Whose heart hath ne"er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned,From wandering on a foreign strand?
Author.-Dorothea Mackellar was born at Rose Bay, Sydney. She is a daughter of the late Honourable Sir Charles Mackellar, K.C.M.G. Her published books include The Closed Door, The Witch Maid and Other Verses, Dream Harbour, Fancy Dress, Outlaws" Luck (a novel).
General.-When Cromwell was about to have his portrait painted, he insisted that his face should be shown " with the warts on. " Miss Mackellar tries to limn the " beauty " and the "terror " of Australia. Pick out the phrases that show the pleasant aspeets and those that show the unpleasant aspects. Are there aspects the authoress has not mentioned? Which is the choicest phrase? To whom is the poem addressed? Tran- scribe the first stanza and mark the beats. Is the poem earnest or flippant? What feeling pervades it? Tell in your own words what are the leading thoughts, and what are the pictures presented. Make a simple diagram to show the stressed syllables in a stanza : here is the first line.
What does the authoress mean by " rainbow gold, " "opal-hearted "? Could you describe your own district in the style of Miss Mackellar?