[Editor: This poem by E. J. Brady was published in Bush-land Ballads (1910).]
Land of Mine
The Deutscher sings his Rhineland;
The Frenchman boasts a vine land;
But South there lies a fine land,
A Roses-Love-and-Wineland —
Australia, land o’ mine.
* * *
Now have ye seen the green palms
Along her Nor’ward strand?
Now have ye seen the brown grass
Across the cattle-land?
Oh, have ye seen the morning
Hang out a crimson warning
Above the mountains grand?
Oh, have ye seen Monaro
In samite robes of snow,
When down her hills of Winter
The swift ski-runners go?
Ere Summer’s magic changes
The blue Australian ranges
From Drake to Omeo!
Where fare the Northern Rovers,
And down the Riverine,
In dry time and in rain time,
Thank God, betimes, I’ve been:
And I have seen what splendour
A changing Bush can lend her,
Varied, vast demesne.
And I have ta’en the Blue-road
That lies around her main;
The bonny, circling Blue-road
That brought me home again,
By rocky cape and foreland,
By bay and beach and shoreland,
Unto the headlands twain.
The Celt may dream his Ireland;
The Scotsman toast his sireland;
The Latin praise a lyre-land;
Give me my own Desire-land,
Australia — Land o’ Mine.
* * *
It’s oh to watch the spindrift
Come clouding from the seas;
It’s oh, the storied cargoes
Beside Australian quays,
When some deep-laden carrier
Brings homeward from the Barrier
Her cedar and her cheese!
And hey, the dish and windlass,
The stockwhip and the pack,
The quart-pot on the saddle,
The camp beside the track.
The wide trails West and Nor’ward,
The joys of going forward.
The joys of coming back!
The wind among the pine trees
Blows chill by Hobart town;
But where a broad pandanus
Uplifts its shady crown,
Where Queensland suns endure a
Warm wind from Arafura,
Spice-scented, bloweth down.
Of red and golden roses
Old Sydney hath no dearth;
Boronia its sweetness
Sheds pleasantly in Perth;
And far and wide she graces
Her miles with fertile places
This fairest land on Earth.
There is no land but Our land,
The rolling field and flower land,
The golden sun-and-shower land,
The burning Bush and bower land —
Australia! land of ours.
Source:
E. J. Brady, Bush-land Ballads, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1910, pp. 29-36
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