Dorothea Mackellar

Australia’s Men

THERE are some that go for love of a fightAnd some for love of a land,And some for a dream of the world set freeWhich they barely understand.A drearn of the world set free from Hate–But splendidly, one and all,Danger they drink as ’twere wine of LifeAnd jest as they reel and fall.Clean aims, rare…

They’re burning off at the Rampadells,

With greedy licking around the trees;The fierce breath sears our eyes.From cores already grown furnace-hot –The logs are well alight!We fling more wood where the flameless heartIs throbbing red and white.The fire bites deep in that beating heart,The creamy smoke-wreaths oozeFrom cracks and knot-holes along the trunkTo melt in greys and blues.The young horned moon…

WHEN the tall bamboos are clicking to the restless little breeze,

And the creamy scented blossoms of the dark pittosporum trees,Grow sweeter with the coming of the night.And the harbour in the distance lies beneath a purple pall,And nearer, at the garden’s lowest fringe,Loud the water soughs and gurgles ’mid the rocks below the wall,Dark-heaving, with a dim uncanny tingeOf a green as pale as beryls,…

The lovely things that I have watched unthinking,

That their soft dyes have steeped my soul in colourThat will not pass away –Great saffron sunset clouds, and larkspur mountains,And fenceless miles of plain,And hillsides golden-green in that unearthlyClear shining after rain;And nights of blue and pearl, and long smooth beaches,Yellow as sunburnt wheat,Edged with a line of foam that creams and hisses,Enticing weary…

From my window I can see,

One far glimpse of open sea.Just a slender slipCurving like a crescent moon—Yet a greater prizeThan the harbour garden-fairSpread beneath my eyes.Just below me swings the bay,Sings a sunny tune,But my heart is far awayOut beyond the dune;Clearer far the sea-gulls’ cryAnd the breakers’ roar,Than the little waves beneathLapping on the shore.For that strip of…