The Adelaide Hills Poem by Francis Duggan

So many trees die of the drought there the Adelaide hills brown to gray
The farmers who live in such places they hardly can hope to make farming pay
A few small flocks of sheep and a few small herds of cattle hard hoofed mammals one might say rare
This Landscape is windswept and barren and this Landscape has always been bare.

Whenever I've driven to Adelaide the Adelaide hills look the same
Perhaps they've not even changed that much since before the white pioneers first came
From those cold and wet Northern Countries for to live where the black tribes roamed free
'Tis true that this Southern Country is one with a black history.

The Adelaide hills undulating and the Adelaide hills may look bare
But the temperate woodlands have a natural beauty in the Countryside around Belair
These hills have been sketched by great artists and these hills have inspired poets to rhyme
And these hills they were old in the days of the dinosaurs long before the Historic Dreamtime.

The old hills above Adelaide in South Australia have seen many Seasons come and go
From centuries of droughts and dry Seasons few things on them now ever grow
They've not changed with the passing of the Seasons with far more gray and brown than green
And few cattle or sheep or marsupials on them from the highway are seen.