Such A Very Old Country Poem by Francis Duggan

Far inland from the nearest city where the bare paddocks are flat and wide
The sheep from the mid day sun in the gum shade are sheltering out there in the brown country-side
With few trees they must crowd together for shelter from the hot sun of a Summer's day
A lonely place for one to live in with the nearest town so far away
This is such a very old Country far older than the first human
Far older than the first dinosaur the centuries of time it does span
Not the type of Land for hard hoofed mammals introduced by humans from Lands far away
Us humans know little of the workings of Nature though we learn from her every day
This is such a very old Country with miles of space between every town
For it's marsupial mammals and it's Dreamtime people a Land
that knows Worldwide renown
As Dorothea Mackellar did once pen a Land of flooding rains and drought
Those who refer to it as a young Country do not know what they are on about
Far inland from the nearest big town and further inland from the sea
The sheep from the sun crowded for shelter in the shade of an old gum tree.