My Country
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 drought 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.
– Dorothea Mackellar
Poem
I have now served long apprenticeship,
In city ways, in commerce, and my feet…
My slow, reluctant feet have known no joy -
I cannot run with eagerness to meet
Each bright new day; once more it will be spent
Within high walls, shut in from sun and dew;
Nor hear the birdsong in the rock-strewn pass
Where all the winds of heaven come whistling through.
These self-same winds should lift my unbound hair
Back from my template in wild ecstasy,
And fragrances from mossy forst floors
Drift up to stir the gypsy heart of me,
Instead of bottled perfumes, soaps and creams,
A hundred aids to beauty, priced too high….
The things I barter when I long to splash
In mountain streams beneath a fair, free sky.
God, in your mercy, grant to me some day
That freedom that the mountain parrot knows,
And let me live at least one year among
the forest trees, the dear, high-country snows.
– Essie Summers
Poem
At dusk in Akaroa town,
When embered subset smoulders down
And softly wreathes the evening mist
In whorls of tender amethyst,
The air is charmed with old-world spell
Of chanting bird and chiming bell;
And garden plots are redolent
Of poignant unforgotten scent,
Where gilly flower and fleur-de-lys
Bloom underneath the cabbage-tree,
And crimson rata tries to choke
With amorous arms the hoary oak,
And jonquil mocks the kowhai’s gold -
Ah, sweet it is …… so young, so old!
So young, so old! So old, so new!
I wonder, at the fall of dew,
When from the evenings grey cocoon
Comes glimmering forth the moth-like moon,
And winds, upon the brooding trees,
Stum soft, nocturnal symphonies,
If kindly ghosts move up and down
In tranquil Akaroa town;
If voyageurs from storied France
Bestride the streets of old romance,
If laughing lads and girls come yet
To dance a happy minuet;
If Grandpère muses still upon
The fortunes of Napoleon,
And Grand’mère by the walnut tree
Sits dreaming on her rosary?
– Mona Tracy
Poem – Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant’s Last Ode
In prison cell I sadly sit,
A d—d crestfallen chappy,
And own to you I feel a bit–
A little bit unhappy.
It really ain’t the place nor time
To reel off rhyming diction;
But yet we’ll write a final rhyme
While waiting crucifixion.
No matter what “end” they decide–
Quick lime? or “b’iling ile?” sir–
We’ll do our best when crucified
To finish off in style, sir?
But we bequeath a parting tip
For sound advice of such men
Who come across in transport ship
To polish off the Dutchmen.
If you encounter any Boers
You really must not loot ‘em,
And, if you wish to leave these shores,
For pity’s sake, don’t shoot ‘em.
And if you’d earn a D.S.O.,
Why every British sinner
Should know the proper way to go
Is: Ask the Boer to dinner.
Let’s toss a bumper down our throat
Before we pass to heaven,
And toast: “The trim-set petticoat
We leave behind in Devon.”
– Harry Morant [His last poem before his execution.]
Poem/Song
I am solo in this world of water
Only the tip of a sunrise visible
Like the morning light in a little girls eyes
I crave this freedom
I find it only in this little ship
Just my soul and this bread and butter
I am comfortable
But there is a treason at sea
Is it me?
It is a wonder, supernatural cover of war
The dark ones who eternal in damnation grow
Set about me now
How they whine and crow
I am solo
In this world of wet
And bitter is my temperament
I close the door to sentiment
And I relish all my youth
I realize that I am doomed
Fear of love and fear of you
But you give me the keys to paradise
It is you who sympathize
You and your perfection grow
I am cradled in your oceans throw
I crave your freedom in this little ship
For you alone can chart my trip
And like these waves I lose my grip
And I sink into your arms– DCT
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