This Sunny Southern Land Poem by Francis Duggan

This sunny Southern Land of the Dreamtime the home of wallaby and kangaroo
Of possum, koala and wombat, the pink and gray, the white and the black cockatoo,
The echidna known to some as the spiny anteater and the platypus strange creatures these two
The dingos the wild red dogs of the Outback in small packs their prey they pursue.

In this vast and beautiful Country unrivalled for it's splendid scenery
One might travel perhaps for one's lifetime and all parts of it yet not see
From the wooded hills of Victoria though the Outback wild, rugged and brown
Though New South Wales up through sunny Queensland a long drive between every Town.

The vast and empty Lands of Southern and Western Australia, in the Northern Territory in Kakadu
The magpie geese there in their thousands as well as hundreds of other wader species to view,
In this remote and huge southern Land mass where white people as time goes are still new
Two hundred and seventeen years does not seem a long time as time goes since Cook came on shore with his crew.

This sunny Southern Land of the Dreamtime the Land of the numbat and the black necked stork
Five thousand kilometres at least from Tasmania up to Cape York
A Land of a myriad of colours with more shades of brown even more so than green
And though in this Land I have travelled vast distances so little of it I have seen.