Friday, February 10, 2012

Just what is happening to our beloved country?

Poems come and go, then another one arrives on the scene that makes you sit back and wonder. Dorathea Mackeller wrote the classis Australian Poem "My Country" aka "A sunburnt Country". The shame of it is that our children of today have never heard of it, or if they have, they have paid scant regard to the meaning of it.
This then brings the second Poem below "A sun Burnt Country" and spells out what is happening right under our noses. Read it and then consider where we are today and what you are going to do about it.

"My Country"
byDorothea Mackellar(1885 - 1968)

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 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!

A stark white ring-barked forest
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 againThe 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 Mackeller



MOVE OVER DOROTHEA MACKELLAR.

When the shearing sheds are silent and the stock camps fallen quiet
When the gidgee coals no longer glow across the outback night
And the bush is forced to hang a sign, 'gone broke and won't be back'
And spirits fear to find a way beyond the beaten track

When harvesters stand derelict upon the wind swept plains
And brave hearts pin their hopes no more on chance of loving rains
When a hundred outback settlements are ghost towns overnight
When we've lost the drive and heart we had to once more see us right

When 'Pioneer' means a stereo and 'Digger' some backhoe
And the 'Outback' is behind the house, there's nowhere else to go
And 'Anzac' is a biscuit brand and probably foreign owned
And education really means brainwashed and neatly cloned

When you have to bake a loaf of bread to make a decent crust
And our heritage once enshrined in gold is crumbling to dust
And old folk pay their camping fees on land for which they fought
And fishing is a great escape; this is until you're caught

When you see our kids with yankee caps and resentment in their eyes
And the soaring crime and hopeless hearts is no longer a surprise
When the name of RM Williams is a yuppie clothing brand
Not a product of our heritage that grew off our land

When offering a hand makes people think you'll amputate
And two dogs meeting in the street is what you call a 'Mate'
When 'Political Correctness' has replaced all common sense
When you're forced to see it their way, there's no sitting on the fence

Yes one day you might find yourself an outcast in this land
Perhaps your heart will tell you then, I should have made a stand'
Just go and ask the farmers that should remove all doubt
Then join the swelling ranks who say, don't sell Australia out'

Author unknown


Now we have to sit and wait for the 2013 Australian Federal elections to take place. We still have a Labor Govenment led by a left wing supported Prime Minister who has been labelled by the electorate as not "being their choice" of prime minister.
I honestly can't say that this government will be re-elected in 2013. But who has the opposition Liberals got to offer as a viable choice for Prime Minister? They are thin on the top to say the least.
This comment posted: 11:35 AEST, 28th February, 2012

No comments:

Post a Comment