My Country by Dorothea McKellar

I love a sun burnt 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 - her wide brown land for me.

The stark white ring bark forests all tragic to the moon - the sapphire misted mountain the hot gold hush of noon - Green tangle of the bushes where the lithe lianas coil - and orchids deck the tree tops and ferns the warm dark soil

Core of my Heart my County - 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