Setting

﻿Setting A lot of Ausralian poetry describes the geographical setting of Australia.

My Country
by Dorothea Mackellar 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, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Her beauty and her terror- <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">The wide brown land for me.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">The stark white ring-barked forests <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">All tragic to the moon, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">The sapphire-misted mountains, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">The hot gold hush of noon. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Green tangle of the brushes, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Where lithe lianas coil, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">And orchids deck the tree-tops <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">And ferns the warm dark soil. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Core of my heart, my country! <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Her pitiless blue sky, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">When, sick at heart, around us <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">We see the cattle die- <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">But then the grey clouds gather, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">And we can bless again <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">The drumming of an army, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">The steady soaking rain. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Core of my heart, my country! <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Land of the Rainbow Gold, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">For flood and fire and famine, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">She pays us back threefold. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Over the thirsty paddocks, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Watch, after many days, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">That filmy veil of greenness <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">That thickens as we gaze...

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">An opal-hearted country, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">A wilful, lavish land <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">All you who have not loved her, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">You will not understand- <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Though earth holds many splendors, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">Wherever I may die, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">I know to what brown country <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; overflow: hidden;">My homing thoughts will fly.

Comprehension tools Rhyming- The rhyming in the poem is used by the author to connect certain ideas together and to dissassociate some ideas from others. Word Choice- The author uses the pronouns "She" and "her" to make the country she's describing more personal and relatable. The poem is about the author's love for every geographical aspect of her country, Australia. She talks about all the different types of land there is there, and how each is equaly beautiful in different ways.