Saturday, December 01, 2007

My country...

We've been chatting on Tom's blog about one of Australia's most celebrated poems, My Country by Dorothea MacKellar. Everyone assumes that the first verse of her epic poem is...

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.

This is fact, the SECOND verse of the poem. The first verse just doesn't get the same publicity.

Notwithstanding this, in today's SMH, there was a free Leunig calendar. The first cartoon (for January) was his version of the famous verse which I find hilarious!

I love a sunburt country
A land of sunburnt plains
Of sunburnt mountain ranges
Of droughts and sunburnt rains.
I love her sunburnt horizons
I love her sunburnt sea
Her sunburn and her sunburn
This sunburnt land for me!

1 comment:

Paul said...

Those of us that had to learn that poem and recite it off by heart way in Year 7 English class remember there was a first verse. Not that I would remember how it goes sixteen years later though.

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