My Love For This Great Country

Why indigenous people love this country not even hard to understand
For one like me from far away a green northern land
In this land of open spaces scarcely a day goes by
That you won't feel the sun's warmth in the sunny southern sky.

'I love a sunburnt country' to these words one can relate
Of Dorothea Mackellar an Australian poetic great
She wrote her most famous poem when homesick in England far away
And her famous lines more so than ever are still relevant today.

This vast land home to many from countries and cities far away
Like London, Rome and Paris, Baghdad and Bombay
From every land around the globe and from every sort of place
You'll find them in this southern land of every creed and race.

From the high woods of Victoria through the dry lands on to Broome
A land of varying beauty where for all there's plenty room
From lands ravaged by droughts, wars and famines beyond the northern seas
They came in vessels scarcely sea worthy the boat refugees.

And though I like millions of others came from a land far away
My love for this great country gets stronger every day
And every morning I awake to the white backed magpie's song
I say to myself I love this land and I am where I belong.