January 13, 2011

Our Country

As I have been stuck to the Television news reports watching in amazement feeling slightly helpless today four states of Australia are experiencing floods but one thing is apparent is the sense of Spirit through out  this will be something that will go on for a long time  I pray that those who have been effected have the strength not today, but in the future and as proud I am of being an Australian, hope there will be ongoing support for them
This is our Summer, and up in Queensland it is naturally their wet season, normally in SA we are suffering heat waves of 40 degrees for days, as I type this now it is raining  steadily outside
I felt I had to share this
My Country
by Dorothea McKellar (1885–1968)

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 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.
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.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Denise, as someone who has spent some time in queensland, I would like everyone in this amazing city to know that there are people around the world watching and hoping that all will be well. If I learned one thing about the aussie resolve it was to not let anything get you down and when times are hard I know everyone will rally round and help friends and neighbours though this awful o

    Stay safe, sandiblu xx

    ReplyDelete