Dorothea Mackellar

My Country

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 drought and flooding rains,

I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me.

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar (1885 – 1968) was an Australian poet and fiction writer. Her poem ‘My Country’ is widely known in Australia, especially its second stanza, which begins: “I love a sunburnt country”.

A woman of independent means, and brought up in an urban environment, she is, however, looked on as a “bush poet”, having spent time on her brother’s farm near Gunnedah. Her poetry shows an empathy with nature and expresses the depth of her love for this “sunburnt country” that is famous still today.

My Country emphasizes the poet’s deep affection for the Australian landscape, contrasting its sunburnt plains and harsh climate with her idyllic memories of England. It captures the vastness, beauty, and harshness of the Australian bush: a specific focus on its unique aspects. In the context of its time, it reflects the growing sense of national identity and pride in the Australian people.

The Colours of Light celebrates the distinctive Australian landscape and its vibrant tones. Unlike the “low-pitched” hues of distant lands, the Australian bush is characterized by “higher key” shades of ivory, aquamarines, golds, and silvers. The poet evokes a symphony of colours, from the golden wattle and silver rivers to the blue cloud-shadows and azure mist. This unique palette reflects the intensity and beauty of the Australian landscape. The richness and diversity of the Australian bush.

The tragic ring-barked 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.
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die –

The Colours of Light

This is not easy to understand
For you that come from a distant land
Where all the colours are low in pitch –
Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich,
Where autumn’s flaming and summer’s green

Here is a beauty you have not seen.
All is pitched in a higher key,
Lilac, topaz, and ivory,
Palest jade-green and pale clear blue
Like aquamarines that the sun shines through,

Golds and silvers, we have at will –
Silver and gold on each plain and hill,
Silver-green of the myall leaves,
Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves,
Silver rivers that silent slide,

Golden sands by the water-side,
Golden wattle, and golden broom,
Silver stars of the rosewood bloom;
Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade:
Opal colours that glow and fade;
On the gold of the upland grass

Fire

This life that we call our own
Is neither strong nor free;
A flame in the wind of death,
It trembles ceaselessly.
And this all we can do
To use our little light
Before, in the piercing wind,
It flickers into night:
To yield the heat of the flame,
To grudge not, but to give
Whatever we have of strength,
That one more flame may live.

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.


The Colours of Light Cont’d

Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass;
Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist;
Hills of tenuous amethyst. . .
Oft the colours are pitched so high
The deepest note is the cobalt sky;
We have to wait till the sunset comes
For shades that feel like the beat of drums –
Or like organ notes in their rise and fall –
Purple and orange and cardinal,
Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow
To peacock-blue as the great stars show . . .
Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink;
Blue-gums, tall at the clearing’s brink;
Ivory pillars, their smooth fine slope
Dappled with delicate heliotrope;
Grey of the twisted mulga-roots;
Golden-bronze of the budding shoots;
Tints of the lichens that cling and spread,
Nile-green, primrose, and palest red . . .
Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane;
Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird’s train;
Cream of the plover; grey of the dove –
These are the hues of the land I love.