Unfinished Australian Summer
January 21st 2008 17:57
Once again I’ve left Australia. This time a few short days ago, I couldn’t wait to escape the heavy air, the burning sun, the relentless blue sky, the persistent flies, the dessicated gardens, the searing wind which rattlies the dry leaves and tears at the stiff bark on the gum trees, the long, long days and the stifling nights. Now under London’s grey skies, as I watch the colour of summer fade from my skin, I find myself looking back on it all with more than a little nostalgia. Snippets of a half-forgotten poem run on repeat through my head. I have a sentence - “I love a sunburnt country”. I have phrases – ‘droughts and flooding rains” “pitiless blue sky”and “jewel sea”. I have words - “hot”, “gold” and “fire”. They all bring with them haunting pictures, in bold, untempered blue, orange, red, brown, stark white and dusty green, of this last, unfinished summer down under.
Finally, this morning, unable to live any longer with a few loose threads, I hit the internet and found the full text. Any real Australian probably knows it all by heart, but for those who’ve never heard it, or who, like me, know only disconnected fragments, here it is...
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 rugged 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.
Dorothy McKellar
The Yarra, the gums and the sky in Studley Park
Finally, this morning, unable to live any longer with a few loose threads, I hit the internet and found the full text. Any real Australian probably knows it all by heart, but for those who’ve never heard it, or who, like me, know only disconnected fragments, here it is...
My Country
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
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 rugged 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.
Dorothy McKellar
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