Dorothea Mackellar - Australian Bush Poetry

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Dorothea MacKellar - Australian Bush Poetry My Country © 1904 Dorothea MacKellar 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. "My Country" is an iconic patriotic poem about Australia, written by Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) at the age of 19 while homesick in England. After travelling through Europe extensively with her father during her teenage years she started writing the poem in London in 1904[1] and re-wrote it several times before her return to Sydney. The poem was first published in the London Spectator in 1908 under the title "Core of My Heart". It was reprinted in many Australian newspapers, quickly becoming well known and establishing Mackellar as a poet. .

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All Over the World Optional Theme Presentationceremonynational
DOROTHEA MACKELLAR POETRY AWARDS 2017 All Over the World optional theme PresentationCeremonyNational NATIONAL PRESENTATION CEREMONY Our Trophies From Strength to Strength Gulargambone artist Alison Dent We have taken big strides into the future this year with the opening of the has created the trophies from Mackellar Centre and the provision of a permanent home for the My Country a fusion of found objects. The collection of 32 watercolours by Jean Isherwood. Through the sourcing of Japanese glass floats had been sponsorship, donations and grants, the centre is slowly transforming to a lying idle at the family’s western vibrant, interesting resource facility with new furniture, computer stations for NSW sheep and cattle farm since students and other learning materials. Alison picked them up, with the fishing net still attached, in Intended as a tourist destination that will contain memorabilia and historical an antique shop years ago. Her items from the poetry competition, the centre is a welcoming airy space that intention was to give the net to has already attracted numerous visitors. The dedication of the W.R. (Bill) her daughter to make a curtain Clegg gallery, named in honour of a late councillor, has given the magnificent but after unravelling it, the size Isherwood collection an attractive venue for visitors to view the unique set and smell changed her mind! of watercolours. The works, depicting lines from the iconic poem by Dorothea Mackellar, hang in a professionally lit space replete with seating. Also the The beautiful hand blown administrative base for the poetry awards, now in their 34th year, the centre glass floats - no two are the is open Tuesdays to Thursdays or by appointment.
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PEACEFUL VOICES Dorothea Research2012.Pdf
AN OLD SONG. The almond blossom is overpast, the apple blossoms blow. I never loved but one man, and I never told him so. My flowers will never come to fruit, but I have kept my pride, A little, cold, and lonely thing, and I have naught beside. The spring wind caught my flowering dreams, they lightly blew away — I never had but one true love, and he died yesterday. DOROTHEA MACKELLAR. AN OLD SONG. (1924, November 15). The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news- article64051476 AN IDLER. There's many a sadder epitaph Than "She was ready to thrill or laugh, For she kept the windows of her soul Open to every wind of mirth And splendour that blows around the earth. Little she did, but here and there Of love she took and gave her share, And she kept her friendships, in good repair. * ** *** **** "Was she not lucky, on he whole? — Dorothea Mackellar, in The Australian Woman's Mirror. AN IDLER. (1924, December 16). The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), p. 4. Retrieved March from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news- article64054396 PEACEFUL VOICES. I fortunate, I knew a refuge When the strained spirit tires Of town's metallic symphony Of wheels and horns and wires: Where through the golden empty stillness Cool flowing voices speak, The alto of the waterfall, The treble of the creek. From far, beyond the headland's shoulder, South-easters bring to me Reminder of earth's wandering, The strong voice of the sea.
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