On October The First Poem by Francis Duggan

With the sun on their dark wings In the clear blue sky
The swallows in pursuit of flying insects fly
The countryside looking lush and green after the recent showers
And in the paddocks large bunches of yellow cape flowers
The golden billed male blackbirds in the sunshine sing
On October the first in the southern Spring
Overnight it was cold with a chill in the breeze
But the day it has warmed to twenty degrees
The birds who do sing every day of the year
The warbling of the magpies always pleasant to hear
And the birds who build mud nest high on fork of tree
The magpie larks sing their familiar pee wee
White butterflies in the sunshine flitting about
In this beautiful place in the coastal far south.