Dorothea Mackellar Poems

This life that we call our own
Is neither strong nor free;
A flame in the wind of death,
It trembles ceaselessly.
...

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
...

From my window I can see,
Where the sandhills dip,
One far glimpse of open sea.
Just a slender slip
...

Over the crest of the Hill of Sleep,
Over the plain where the mists lie deep,
Into a country of wondrous things,
...

At the dawning of the day,
On the road to Gunnedah,
When the sky is pink and grey
As the wings of a wild galah,
...

The lovely things that I have watched unthinking,
Unknowing, day by day,
That their soft dyes have steeped my soul in colour
...

This is not easy to understand
For you that come from a distant land
Where all thecolours are low in pitch -
...

WHEN the tall bamboos are clicking to the restless little breeze,
And bats begin their jerky skimming flight,
...

They're burning off at the Rampadells,
The tawny flames uprise,
With greedy licking around the trees;
The fierce breath sears our eyes.
...

Since it befell, with work and strife
I had not time to live my life
I turned away from it until
Work should be done and strife be still.
...