How Great My Love For These Old Hills Poem by Francis Duggan

Old Puffing Billy Belgrave's ancient steam train
Puffs up the slope through Selby's wooded hill
And currawongs are piping on the tall gums
And Kookaburra's laughter sounding shrill

And when the train has passed up hill towards Emerald
And with Mother Nature I'm once more alone
I feel the peace I've always felt in Selby
How great my love for these old hills has grown.

Were i a poet I'd write a poem for Selby
And it's lofty gums the mountain ash and mountain gray
The pleasant fluting of the white backed magpie
And the shrike thrush's song at dawning of the day.

The butcherbird his distinct song can't be mistaken
You hear him flute from some distance away
'Twas love at first sight for me with old Selby
And i love these hills more than my words could say.

Whoever said that one can only love their Homeland
With due respect i think has got it wrong
I well may be a migrant in this Country
But don't tell me that to here i don't belong.

Old Puffing Billy has puffed uphill towards Emerald
And with Mother Nature I'm once more alone
I feel the peace that I've always felt in Selby
And how great my love for these old hills has grown.