In The Wooded Hills Of Sherbrooke Poem by Francis Duggan

Absence makes the heart grow fonder some have been known to say
And in fancy I can see them they don't seem far away
And I see and hear the galahs in their feathers of pink and gray
In the high paddock by the wooded hill in the bright sunlight of day.

In the wooded hills of Sherbrooke Winter is at an end
In the place where many people live who see Nature as a friend
And the conservationists of Sherbrooke in their wooded hills take pride
You ask them they will tell you 'tis a grand old Countryside.

The whipbird in the wooded gully I fancy I can hear
The whip like cracking of his call it resounds loud and clear
And the varied song of the lyrebird one never could mistake
Even out of the noise of a chainsaw his own tune he can make.

For many years I lived in Sherbrooke and the memories with me remain
Of the distinctive songs of the pied currawongs Nature's forecasters of rain
And in their small corner of the woodland the bell miners pipe all day
And where they live it has been said there is dieback and decay.

In the wooded hills of Sherbrooke I fancy I can hear and see
A small flock of beautiful crimson rosellas piping on a wattle tree
And the sulphur crested cockatoos with yellow crests and feathers white as snow
Lovely to look at but their grating calls coarser than that of a crow.

The laughter of the kookaburra in the wooded hillside ring
They lay their eggs in a tree cavity and raise their young in Spring
And the giant mountain ash trees monarchs of all they survey
Tower over all in Sherbrooke East of Melbourne far away.