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 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.
**
poem by Dorothea Mackeller
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Related quotes
Whose Country Is This?
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of snakes;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of many waters;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of thieves! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of oil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of earthquakes!
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of lovers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of volcanoes!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful flowers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hansome men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of roses;
Whose country is this?
it is a land ruled only by men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land without rainfall;
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by a woman;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of corruption!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pirates! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by law;
Whose country is this?
It is a land controlled by rebels!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ice;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of singers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of troubles;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of war! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land with the biggest cemetery in the wolrd!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of desert;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of trees;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant teenagers!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of timber;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hatred;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of love;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of care;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of peace;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of smokers!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of businesses;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of harlots;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of wise people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of idiots!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of gold;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of cocoa;
Whose country is this?
It is a alnd full of crabs;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of evil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of rainfalls;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ants;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of horses;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pigs;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of statues;
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of birds;
And so on, and so forth!
Because nature had made them so as we see them around us,
But the wise and fool live together on this earth.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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In The Wide Brown Country
To the wide brown country the Seasons come and go
South in South Australia where the Murray flow
Through the wide brown country where the brown dust fly
When the gales are rushing down the southern sky.
In the wide brown country woods not there to see
Where the mighty Murray crawls on towards the sea
Through the bone dry paddocks that are never green
Mother Nature in this landscape in her brown only seen.
Where the black tribes fished and hunted centuries ago
Little of their culture others seem to know
Through the wide brown country they travelled far and wide
And theirs was a great culture but their culture with them died.
In the wide brown country wildering flowers are rare
And the sun parched paddocks always looking bare
And where only the hardiest can hope to survive
Emu, wombat and wallaby and grey roo seem to thrive.
In the wide brown country where the Murray flow
Onwards towards the ocean onwards ever slow
And the grass is growing brown even where the rains have been
In that brown old country that man has failed to green.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Kerry, in memoriam
`
take him home to Ellerston
there to rest, proud heart and soul
sultry rhythm, bushland hearth
beloved sunburnt country
just another day in the bush
life rolls on like a country song
paean to the homeland south
rays bounce off yon coffin sheen
life does go on without you
your neighbor's cattle wander
stray across funeral march
Mackellar's words guide our steps:
'Though earth holds many splendours,
wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly....'
out in blistering open land
rest at last o learned hand
so ends one life's longest day
mem'ries now forever stay
`
poem by Frederick Kesner
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Queensland Opal
Opal, little opal, with the red fire glancing,
Set my blood a-spinning, set my pulse a-stir,
Strike the harp of memory, set my dull heart dancing
Southward to the Sunny Land and the love of Her!
Opal, shining opal, let them call you luckless jewel,
Let them curse or let them covet, you are still my heart's desire,
You that robbed the sun and moon and green earth for fuel
To gather to your milky breast and fill your veins with fire!
Green of fluttering gum-leaves above dim water-courses,
Red of rolling dust-clouds, blue of summer skies,
Flash of flints afire beneath the hoofs of racing horses,
Sunlight and moonlight and light of lovers' eyes
Pink clasping hands amid a Southern summer gloaming,
Green of August grasses, white of dew-sprung pearls,
Grey of winging wild geese into the Sunset homing,
Twined with all the kisses of a Queen of Queensland girls!
poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Out Of The Fulness Of The Heart The Mouth Speaketh
In answer to those who have said that English Poets
give no personal love to their country.
ENGLAND, my country, austere in the clamorous council of nations,
Set in the seat of the mighty, wielding the sword of the strong,
Have we but sung of your glory, firm in eternal foundations?
Are not your woods and your meadows the core of our heart and our song?
O dear fields of my country, grass growing green, glowing golden,
Green in the patience of winter, gold in the pageant of spring,
Oaks and young larches awaking, wind-flowers and violets blowing,
What, if God sets us to singing, what save you shall we sing?
Who but our England is fair through the veil of her poets' praises,
What but the pastoral face, the fruitful, beautiful breast?
Are not your poets' meadows starred with the English daisies?
Were not the wings of their song-birds fledged in an English nest?
Songs of the leaves in the sunlight, songs of the fern-brake in shadow,
Songs of the world of the woods and songs of the marsh and the mere,
Are they not English woods, dear English marshland and meadow?
Have not your poets loved you? England, are you not dear?
Shoulders of upland brown laid dark to the sunset's bosom,
Living amber of wheat, and copper of new-ploughed loam,
Downs where the white sheep wander, little gardens in blossom,
Roads that wind through the twilight up to the lights of home.
Lanes that are white with hawthorn, dykes where the sedges shiver,
Hollows where caged winds slumber, moorlands where winds wake free,
Sowing and reaping and gleaning, spring and torrent and river,
Are they not more, by worlds, than the whole of the world can be?
Is there a corner of land, a furze-fringed rag of a by-way,
Coign of your foam-white cliffs or swirl of your grass-green waves,
Leaf of your peaceful copse, or dust of your strenuous highway,
But in our hearts is sacred, dear as our cradles, our graves?
Is not each bough in your orchards, each cloud in the skies above you,
Is not each byre or homestead, furrow or farm or fold,
Dear as the last dear drops of the blood in the hearts that love you,
Filling those hearts till the love is more than the heart can hold?
Therefore the song breaks forth from the depths of the hidden fountain
Singing your least frail flower, your raiment of seas and skies,
Singing your pasture and cornfield, fen and valley and mountain,
England, desire of my heart, England, delight of mine eyes!
Take my song too, my country: many a son and debtor
Pays you in praise and homage out of your gifts' full store;
Life of my life, my England, many will praise you better,
None, by the God that made you, ever can love you more!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Country Alone
There is dreaming land and happy country
Cursed and blessed by her beauty alone
The lost children of the country
Foreign in sweet home alone
Do not understand country
Hardly meaning own name alone
Some praise the country
Some leave and laugh alone
Emptying nectar of country
Satisfying their belly alone
Forget about future seed country
Fight living and growing alone
So tragic for the country
Eaten by her child alone
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Sunburned Country (feat. Keith Urban)
I carry her with me (Ah)
I carry her pride (Yeah yeah)
Whenever I speak her name
My soul it comes alive
She taught me to be strong (oh)
She taught me to fight
And I am who I am today
Because she raised me right
Yes it is
Chorus:
In a sunburned country
Her magic and her mystery (oh)
In a sunburned country
Forever will be home to me
Yeah that's where my heart is truely free
Yes it is
Yeah....Yey,Yey,Yey...
Ooh
The creaks and the rivers
The dust and the mud (ooh dust and the mud)
All of us understand
This land gets in your blood
Yes it does
The sight of the blue gums
And black cockatoos
White snow Kosciusko
Red rock Uluru
Sing it one more time
In a sunburned country
Her magic and her mystery
In a sunburned country
Forever will be home to me
Yeah that's where my heart is truely free
Yes it is
Yeah....Yey,Yey,Yey...
Oh yeah...
We've always been humble (Oh yeah)
Too scared to be proud (Yes we have)
I think it's time that
We all stand and say that
We love our home out loud
Sunburned country
I'm proud to say that's sweet our home
In a sunburned country
That's always gonna be my home
Yeah
In a sunburned country
Her magic and her mystery
In a sunburned country
Forever will be home to me
Yeah that's where my heart is truely free
Yes it is
I love all the people
I love all the sounds
Sleeping under a tin roof
With a hard rain coming down
song performed by by Olivia Newton-John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Native Title
You are welcome to our country
When full respect is paid
To those who souls grew out from where
Their ancestors were laid
This land is our protector
This land our path in life
This land is our great comforter
This land is hurt by strife
Feel the heart that beats within it
As the seasons come and go
Feel the energy within it
From which everything does grow
This land will guide your footsteps
This land will feed you well
This land needs loving kindly
This land is not to sell
This land is just our country
This land is just our home
For its not just who owns this land
But whom this land does own.
poem by David Keig
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A Brown Study
LET them sing of their primrose and cowslip,
Their daffodil-gold-coloured hair,
Their bluebells, blue eyes, and white violets,
All the pale dreamy things they find fair;
Give me stir of brown leaves in the sunshine,
The whir of brown wings through the wheat,
The rush of brown hares through the clover,
And the light in brown eyes of my sweet!
Gold hair? Well, I never could love it,
Yet gold, I suppose, has its worth;
The head that I love is as dusky
As the breast of our mother, the earth;
With a gleam like the shine of wet seaweed,
Round pools that the tide has left clear,
And warm like the breast of a linnet,
And as brown, is the hair of my dear.
From the edge of the cliff we look downwards
On the shore, and the bay, and the town,
And brown is the short turf we lean on,
The fishing-boats' sails are all brown:
The sky may be blue--that's the background,--
But the picture itself, to be fair,
However it's shaded and varied,
Should be brown as the dress that you wear.
A lark bursts to sudden sweet singing--
That tuft of brown grass is his home--
And now, a brown speck, he is rising
Against the clear windy sky-dome;
And he sings--how I know? Love instructs me
To know all his notes, what they mean--
That it isn't the colour I care for,
But yourself, oh, my gipsy, my queen!
Ah! the lark knows my heart--I his language;
It's my heart he sings out to the skies;
It is you that I love, and what matter
The colour of hair or of eyes?
No doubt I should love you as dearly
Were your hair like an apricot's down,
And your eyes like the grey of the morning;
But I'm glad, all the same, that they're brown.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Wild In The Country
(words & music by george wise - hugo peretti - luigi creatore)
A rose grows wild in the country
A tree grows tall as the sky
The wind blows wild in the country
And part of the wild, wild country, am i
Wild, wild, like the deer and the dove
Wild and free is this land that I love
A dream grows wild in the country
A love grows tall as the sky
A heart beats wild in the country
And here with a dream in my heart
Part of the wild, wild country, am i
song performed by by Elvis Presley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In a Country
My love and I are inventing a country, which we
can already see taking shape, as if wheels were
passing through yellow mud. But there is a prob-
lem: if we put a river in the country, it will thaw
and begin flooding. If we put the river on the bor-
der, there will be trouble. If we forget about the
river, there will be no way out. There is already a
sky over that country, waiting for clouds or smoke.
Birds have flown into it, too. Each evening more
trees fill with their eyes, and what they see we can
never erase.
One day it was snowing heavily, and again we were
lying in bed, watching our country: we could
make out the wide river for the first time, blue and
moving. We seemed to be getting closer; we saw
our wheel tracks leading into it and curving out
of sight behind us. It looked like the land we had
left, some smoke in the distance, but I wasn't sure.
There were birds calling. The creaking of our
wheels. And as we entered that country, it felt as if
someone was touching our bare shoulders, lightly,
for the last time.
poem by Larry Levis
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Come Home My Son, Come Home
As I travel across this country
the land that I love best
with its snowy peaked mountains
that lay out of reach in the west.
The rivers and the lakes
where nature grows at its best.
The forests and the plains
that each has their part
in the land I love the best.
I write from a distant shore
with dreams of coming home again
ever always on my mind.
Seeing once again friends
from a long, long time ago.
The land that I live in is not to my desire.
My home is ten thousand miles away,
and each time I see it,
it’s like the birth of a new day.
The cities are filled with people
and in the countryside; you can breathe in the fresh air.
The more I dream about it,
the more I wish to be there.
It is not the land of my birth,
but the place that I call home.
That distant country keeps calling to me
come home my son, come home.
31 January 2009
poem by David Harris
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Blue, Brown and Gold
Blue, brown and gold, bold, I'll unfold
a portrait drawn upon a train
one summer morn which shall remain
for heart to hold if truth be told.
Brown, gold and blue she sat, smiled too,
to me it seemed true beauty gleamed, -
my spirit teemed with hopes that, teamed,
we'd share love through fair seasons new.
Blue, gold and brown without a frown
she journeyed on, too soon was gone, -
yet still upon my soul she shone.
Brown bag, blue gown, - Life's golden crown!
Blue, brown and gold, cannot grow [c]old
Year in year out their tale is told...
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Out There In The Wide Country
Out there in the wide country like a small speck in the sky
The small brown skylark is carolling as upwards he does fly
On a warm day in October with a beautiful Spring breeze
With temperatures near perfect around 23 degrees,
October in Victoria in the woodland all the day
The gray shrike thrush is whistling in his cloak of brown and gray
And the white backed magpie is fluting upon the gray gum tree
And the magpie lark is singing pee wee pee wee pee wee
And the kookaburras laughter is ringing loud and clear
Out there in the wide country them one so often hear,
Out there in the wide country the wildflowers are in bloom
And the woods and paddocks scenting of Nature's sweet perfume
And the temperature is perfect days such as this are rare
And the nesting birds are singing and Spring is in the air.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I Love This Land Australia
I love this Land Australia of gum and wattle tree
This vast and sunlit Continent is home from home for me
And though I come from a distant Land when I have had my day
Than underneath Australian soil where better place to lay.
I love this Land Australia home of the kangaroo
Of echidna and wombat, platypus and cockatoo
Of lorikeet and rosella, koala, possum and emu
And other unusual birds and animals as I've mentioned just a few.
I like Australian people if poor man make good they say
The man he is a battler, good on him anyway,
In Land of wedge tailed eagle there's rooom to spread one's wings
And in the lucky country the battler is a king.
I love this Land Australia it's home from home for me,
Home of the kookaburra and gum and wattle tree
And bell bird and bell magpie who through the Winter sing
A Winter oft times milder than Ireland in the Spring.
I love this Land Australia of sunshine and bird song
And with each passing day my love for this great Country grow more strong
And though I come from a distant Land when I have had my day
Than underneath Australian soil where better place to lay.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Rocky Acres
This is a wild land, country of my choice,
With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.
Seldom in these acres is heard any voice
But voice of cold water that runs here and there
Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.
No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry
For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.
He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,
He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,
He catches the trembling of small hidden things,
He tears them in pieces dropping from the sky:
Tenderness and pity the land will deny,
Where life is but nourished from water and rock,
A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.
Time has never journeyed to this lost land,
Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,
The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,
Careless if the season be early or late.
The skies wander overhead, now blue now slate:
Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow
If June did not borrow his armour also.
Yet this is my country beloved by me best,
The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,
Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,
Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood
Bold immortal country whose hill-tops have stood
Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go,
Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.
poem by Robert Graves
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A Day For Thanksgiving
Today we celebrate a proclamation, to thank our Gracious Lord and God.
To thank Him all across this nation, throughout this blessed land we trod.
And we thank Him for our Salvation, while with humbled hearts we nod.
We’re set apart through Sanctification, and led by Christ’s staff and rod.
Our country’s blessed in many ways, through The Lord’s Amazing Grace.
A Grace that sustains all our days, and across all this land in every place.
It is to The Lord we give our praise, while we also humbly seek His face.
For to that land that humbly prays, God shall continue His Loving Grace.
For us this country is a land of plenty, supplied by The Loving Lord above.
He reaches down while guiding many, with His awesome Grace and Love.
And God can meet the needs of any, fitting them just like a hand in glove.
So when blessed in a land of plenty, it should be God you’re thinking of.
Our Thanksgiving Day had its start, through the decision of just one man.
It is just one day that is set apart, to express thanks throughout our land.
And thankfulness is at the heart, as we acknowledge God’s Loving Hand.
Thanks each day we should impart, until all men truly come to understand.
Our country’s birth and every nation, is conceived by our Sovereign God,
Who alone deserves all men’s praise, for His sustaining and loving Grace.
A Grace that reaches down to many, drawing them to Christ and His Love,
Until He touches every single heart, of every single man upon every land.
(Copyright ©11/2005)
Rainbow Country "A Place of Love"
I'm riding the range in the rainbow country.
Where the skies are always filled with glistening stars.
Where the air is always pure and comforting to the heart.
Where my mind can ride the range in search of eternal peace.
Where dreams turn out so wonderful and freely.
I'm riding the range in the rainbow country.
Where love is fair and free.
Where love never dies.
Were love can be nurtured and always stay high.
Where the heart always remains serene and peaceful.
In the rainbow country:
A place fo love.
A place of peace.
Hence, I'll continue to ride the range in the rainbow country.
So my soul can remain free.
poem by Nora Belle Bynum
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She is Far From the Land
She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her, sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying.
She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,
Every note which he loved awaking; --
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
How the heart of the Minstrel is breaking.
He had lived for his love, for his country he died,
They were all that to life had entwined him;
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,
Nor long will his Love stay behind him.
Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow;
They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the West,
From her own loved island of sorrow.
poem by Thomas Moore
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Durango Mountain Caballero
This song was first released on the rocky mountain holiday album. it is the only album it has been released on.
You know I love the trail Im on
And the friends who ride with me
The country that were passing through
Is a paradise to see
A haven for my spirit
The homeland of my dreams
My heart flies through the wilderness
And on an eagles wings
And oh I love the waterfall
And the way the river sings
From snowcapped peaks both proud and tall
Through forests deep and green
The highway of the mountains
The lifeblood of the land
I can hear my mother speak to me
And hold my fathers hand
Durango mountain caballero
Take me for a ride
On the backbone of this mighty land
The continental divide
To the place where earth and heaven meet
The mountains and the sky
In the heart of colorado
Rocky mountain high
And oh I love the campfire
And the circle that Im in
The stories and the laughter
They should never ever end
Forever in my memory
Forever in my song
On a san juan mountain trail ride
Ill carry you along
Words and music by john denver
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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