Francis Duggan

The Nature and rugged beauty of this Southern Land
Is a thing one like me could never understand
A migrant from by old brown hills far away
Of Nature we learn something new every day.

How could one from the Land of the black and gray crow
Anything of the Nature of this Southern Country hope to know
The home of megapodes and marsupials and birds of beauty rare
Australia with any a Land to compare.

Australia the Land of the red and grey roo
Of emu, koala and wombat and many species of cockatoo
Of butcherbird, kookaburra, lyrebird, magpie and the pied currawong
The dark birds 'tis said who have rain in their song.

Of Australia's many beautiful parrots to name just a few
Rosellas, lorikeets and king parrots so lovely to view
The monoterenes egg laying mammals in Australia only found
The platypus and echidna mystery them does surround

The wonders of Nature have never been few
And each day from her we do learn something new
And I from the Land of the black and gray crow
So little of Australia's Nature does know.