Those Who Call This A New Country Poem by Francis Duggan

Those who call this a new Country they sure have got it wrong
It was old in the Dreamtime the time of dance and song
When the Indigenous people had their corroborees
Up there by the high woodland in the shadow of the trees
This great and ancient Country has inspired the poets to rhyme
'Twas old in the age of the dinosaurs long before the Dreamtime
In two centuries of white rule what have we to celebrate
Of a wild and a natural beauty a mess we did create?
This is quite a young Country to people such as me
I seem to know so little of Indigenous history
The culture that we celebrate is from a distant shore
And the Indigenous history historians tend to ignore
And that this is a new Country is new to us alone
It is as old as time itself and as old as the first stone.