  This is not easy to understand For you that come from a distant land Where all the colours are low in pitch— Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich, Where autumn’s flaming and summer’s green— Here is a beauty you have not seen. All is pitched in a higher key, Lilac, topaz, and ivory, Palest jade-green and pale clear blue Like aquamarines that the sun shines through, Golds and silvers, we have at will— Silver and gold on each plain and hill, Silver-green of the myall leaves, Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves, Silver rivers that silent slide, Golden sands by the water-side, Silver stars of the rosewood bloom; Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade: Opal colours that glow and fade; On the gold of the upland grass Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass; Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist; Hills of tenuous amethyst.... Oft the colours are pitched so high The deepest note is the cobalt sky; We have to wait till the sunset comes For shades that feel like the beat of drums Or like organ notes in their rise and fall— Purple and orange and cardinal, Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow To peacock-blue as the great stars show.... Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink; Blue-gums, tall at the clearing’s brink; Dappled with delicate heliotrope; Grey of the twisted mulga-roots; Golden-bronze of the budding shoots; Tints of the lichens that cling and spread, Nile-green, primrose, and palest red.... Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane; Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird’s train; Cream of the plover; grey of the dove— These are the hues of the land I love. Australia. |
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