My Country by Dorothea Mackellar Sentimental look at

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

Sentimental look at memories of the English countryside of her youth Simple rhythm The love of field and coppice, Of green and shaded lanes. Of ordered woods and gardens Sets up a contrast with what is to follow Is running in your veins, Strong love of grey-blue distance Brown streams and soft dim skies Mackellar’s sense of belonging lays elsewhere I know but cannot share it, My love is otherwise. Assonance: repetition of the ‘o’ sound reinforces the gentle and careful description

Australia is a land of extremes Dramatic adjectives I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. Alliteration of the ‘s’ and ‘r’ sounds highlights the extremes Repetition of ‘love’ An appeal to the reader’s emotions Mackellar is fascinated by the Australian sea and landscape I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror The wide brown land for me! Metaphor comparing the sea to a jewel Juxtaposition of ‘beauty’ and ‘terror’ stresses the extremes

The intensity of the colours of the Australian landscape Valuable as precious stones and metals The flora (vegetation) of Australia is vibrant and vigorous A stark white ring-barked forest Personification highlights the dying forests under moonlight All tragic to the moon, The sapphire-misted mountains, Metaphor The hot gold hush of noon. Assonance Green tangle of the brushes, Where lithe lianas coil, Alliteration of ‘l’ emphasises the energy of climbing vines And orchids deck the tree-tops And ferns the warm dark soil. Verbs stress the vibrancy of the vegetation Assonance of the long ‘o’ sound stresses vigorous growth.

Mackellar is fully aware of how cruel the Australian landscape can be. At its ‘core’, nature is unforgiving On the other hand, nature can be beneficial. Again; the contrast is stressed. Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky, When sick at heart, around us, We see the cattle die – Repetition of ‘my’ with the exclamation mark stresses her clear understanding Personification suggests nature is motivated by almost human emotional qualities But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless again The drumming of an army, The steady, soaking rain. Personification/ Metaphor of rain emphasises the contrasting character of the Australian landscape

Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, But Mackellar also knows that at the ‘core’ of her country is an understanding that ‘she’ will support and nurture us despite her cruelty Paradox highlights the give and take nature of the Australian landscape For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back threefold – Alliteration Over the thirsty paddocks, Watch, after many days, The filmy veil of greenness That thickens as we gaze. Repetition of colour

Addresses people who may criticise Australia as a wasteland. You need to understand Again; the juxtaposition between the give and take The planet may be beautiful but no matter where Mackellar goes she will always call Australia home An opal-hearted country, A wilful, lavish land - Metaphor. The ‘heart’ of Australia is precious and valuable All you who have not loved her, You will not understand – Personification; ‘wilful’-deliberately harmful and ‘lavish’ -generous Though earth holds much splendour, Wherever I may die, I know to what brown country My homing thoughts will fly. Metaphor. Mackellar compares herself to a bird that flies home to its birthplace.