This Land Poem by Francis Duggan

This Land bronzed from the sunshine this Land as old as time
That's famed in song and story and by poets honoured in rhyme
The home of pademelon, koala, wombat, wallaby and roo
And magpie lark and magpie, lorikeet and cockatoo,
On this brown Land human beings have lived for fifty thousand years
A history of laughter and a history of tears
And though dispossession is a thing that has happened Worldwide
In some aspects of human history there isn't cause for pride,
To this great Land in the far south the Seasons come and go
And so much more of her Nature we have to learn and know
In the vastness of this great Land we are like tiny grains of sand
And though we may claim to love her we will never understand
Her unpredictable Nature, beyond her cities by the sea
The vast outback has few human beings and life there as lonely as can be.