The Hungry Hill Poem by Francis Duggan

Across the place of stones and thistles known as the hungry hill
The harsh call of the kookaburra echoes loud and shrill
And down in the wooded gully the calls of the weerloo
In this the home of wallaby and the wild grey kangaroo,
An open and rugged landscape with scattered stands of trees
Where thistledown carry the seeds of thistles in the freshening evening breeze
To germinate amongst the bracken on the hillside brown and dry
With every passing Season the thistles multiply,
Across the old brown hillside many centuries ago
The red hot burning lava in a river of flame did flow
And in the downland paddocks volcanic rocks and stones abound
And evidence of the volcanic age to be seen for miles around
The stony hill where only thistles and coarse grass and bracken grow
And across the rugged landscape echoes the harsh caw of the crow.