Saturday 26 January 2019

Happy Australia Day 2019

Happy Australia Day to all my Aussie Friends. 

Have a good  day! We are blessed to live here on this island continent in the south.  Celebrate it for what it is today- diverse, free, friendly and prosperous. Remember Dorothea Mackeller's words when she doesn't treat us so well.( below) We know "she'll be right in the end "

My Country   by Dorothea Mackeller

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.


3 comments:

Pink Rose said...

Hi Jenny lovely post ,Happy Australia day my friend,have a good one xx

Janice said...

We truly are lucky to live in such a wonderful country. It’s worth celebrating. Dorothea McKellar really hit the nail on the head with her poem.

Susan said...

Happy Australia Day to you too!
Love the sashiko ....it’s so relaxing isn’t it?