“My Country” Introduction

• "My Country" is a patriotic poem by Australian writer Dorothea Mackellar. Inspired by a conversation Mackellar with a friend after the two had visited England, the poem praises the vast, rugged splendor of the Australian wilderness over the gentler charms of the English countryside. "My Country" acknowledges the harsh and the beautiful elements of Mackellar's native landscape and treats both as part of the romance of her "sunburnt country." Published when Mackellar was just 23, the poem became an instant success and remains a popular expression of Australian national identity. It first appeared in the London Spectator in 1908 (under the title "Core of My Heart") and was later collected in the volume The Closed Door, and Other Verses (1911).

• Read the full text of “My Country”

“My Country” Summary

• The love of fields, cultivated groves of trees, shady paths surrounded by greenery, and orderly woods and gardens is part of who you are. Your passion for grayish-blue vistas, brown streams, and muted skies is something I recognize but can't share. I love a different kind of landscape.

  I love a country that's scorched by the sun—a land full of broad plains, jagged mountain ranges, droughts, and flood-causing rainstorms. I love that country's faraway horizons, its glittering ocean, its beautiful and terrifying features. That vast brown land (Australia) is the one for me!

  That land features forests filled with bare white trees that look tragic in the moonlight; mountains covered in beautiful blue mist; and a hot, sunny silence in the middle of the day. It features dense green thickets where long vines climb in loops and tall ferns covered in orchids grow thickly from the red soil.

  My country is the thing I love most! I love how her blue sky looks indifferent as cattle sicken and die around us (during droughts)—until rain clouds appear, and we again gratefully witness a steady rain shower that sounds like an army drumming.

  My country is the thing I love most! It's like the mythical, gold-filled land at the end of the rainbow. It inflicts floods, fires, and famines on us, but repays us three times over for our suffering. Watch how, in the dry enclosed pastures, a misty green color slowly returns and deepens as we look on.

  My country has a heart like opal (the gemstone it produces). It's unyielding, yet richly rewarding. Those of you who haven't loved her will never understand those of us who do. There are many glorious places on earth, but no matter where I die, I know that my dying thoughts will return to my brown country, Australia.

“My Country” Themes

• 

  Patriotism and Pride

  “My Country” is a patriotic poem celebrating Mackellar’s native Australia. Addressed to someone who prefers a different country (implied to be England), the poem praises the unique “beauty” and “terror” of the Australian landscape. While acknowledging that this landscape is rugged, often harsh, and prone to volatile extremes, the poem’s lush, romantic language treats even these challenges as a source of pride. Framing Australia as a place that no outsider can truly understand, the speaker calls the country the “Core of [the speaker’s] heart” and the only place they’ll ever consider home.

  The poem celebrates the “sunburnt country” of Australia as one of wild and wonderful extremes. The speaker highlights the “beauty” of features such as the country’s seas, forests, and mountains, but also the “terror” of features such as its fires, floods, and droughts. They recognize that the Australian wilderness can be dangerous and even punishing, yet they find romance and glory in these same qualities (as when they include "droughts and flooding rains" in the features they "love" about their country).

  In fact, the speaker champions these extremes over the softer, tamer beauty of England, with its “ordered woods and gardens.” In phrases such as “jewel-sea,” “sapphire-misted mountains,” and “opal-hearted country,” the poem casts the speaker's homeland as a precious gem that’s well worth whatever hardships it imposes on those who live there.

  In the end, the poem implies that outsiders can’t properly appreciate or even handle Australia, whereas an Australian can learn to love it like no other place. The speaker calls Australia the “Land of the Rainbow Gold,” alluding to the fact that the country is geographically remote, like the mythical land at the end of the rainbow. This phrase also portrays Australia as a magical, fortunate place that most people can't reach or grasp. The speaker insists that “All […] who have not loved” Australia “will not understand” the country. Yet, for Australians like the speaker, who do understand it, it’s the greatest of all “splendours” on “earth.”

  Though the poem acknowledges some of the difficulties that come with such splendor, its overall stance is straightforwardly patriotic. It draws partly on the genre tradition of the “bush ballad”—poetry that celebrates the Australian wilderness—and is considered a classic statement of Australian national pride.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.
• 

  Wildness vs. Tameness

  “My Country” contrasts the tame, pretty, orderly landscape of England (where the families of many white Australians originated) with the wild, intense natural beauty of Australia. Personifying the Australian landscape as a kind of volatile goddess, the speaker welcomes the trials and dangers “She” poses, treating even the country’s natural disasters as a kind of thrill. The poem portrays rugged wilderness as more demanding but, ultimately, far more rewarding and exciting than any tame, cozy countryside.

  The poem begins by juxtaposing a quiet pastoral landscape with the Australian bush (or wilderness). Though the speaker doesn't mention England by name, the pastoral landscape they describe is conventionally English­ and emphasizes comfort and ease: there are “coppice[s]” (woodland cut down and managed by human beings), “shaded lanes,” “ordered woods and gardens,” a “soft” sky, etc.

  And yet, the speaker loves a much different kind of landscape: rather than coziness, softness, and order, the speaker likes "sweeping" scale, ruggedness, and disorder. An adventurous spirit, the speaker prefers a setting where “terror,” "trag[edy]," and death are part of the package. In fact, the speaker’s personification of Australia casts the land itself as a kind of dangerous and temperamental goddess, one who constantly tests human beings but richly repays them for meeting the challenge.

  Again, the speaker implies that there's an adventurous thrill in surviving these conditions. The poem praises the country's "pitiless blue sky," as if heaven were looking down on the land without mercy (and as if this were a good thing!). The speaker also describes a cattle-killing drought, followed by the "bless[ed]" relief of rain, in terms that evoke a divine plague and its cure. The speaker even claims that “For flood and fire and famine, / [Australia] pays us back threefold”—like a deity showering down three times as many blessings as curses. Ultimately, the poem depicts the country as “wilful,” yet “lavish.” In other words, though Australia is volatile and difficult to manage (like the moods of a deity), it's also generous in the rewards it gives.

  "My Country" thus portrays Australia as the greatest place on earth not despite but because of its wild, rugged nature. The speaker isn't charmed by quiet, bucolic scenery, and instead finds both the lushness and the harshness of their country's terrain deeply appealing to their imagination.

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “My Country”

• Lines 1-4

  The love of field and coppice,
  Of green and shaded lanes,
  Of ordered woods and gardens
  Is running in your veins—

  The poem begins by addressing an unnamed person: the "your" referred to in line 4. This person, the speaker says, enjoys a particular kind of landscape: one that's tame, pretty, and bucolic. They love "field[s]" and "coppice[s]" (i.e., human-managed woodlands), "green and shaded lanes" of the type one might find in suburban or rural towns, and "ordered woods and gardens" that indicate human control of the environment. Their "love" of such landscapes is instinctive and perhaps inherited: it's "running in [their] veins."

  The cozy scenery of this opening stanza is characteristic of the English countryside. (Though England isn't mentioned by name, the poet recalled that "My Country" was inspired by a conversation with a friend after the two had visited the UK.)

  Subtle internal rhyme ("love of"/"Of"/"Of") and assonance ("shaded lanes") add pleasing musicality to this description of a pleasant landscape. These lines also establish a meter and rhyme scheme that will make it musical and memorable throughout:

  The love | of field | and cop- | pice,
  Of green | and sha- | ded lanes,

  Each line contains three iambs, or metrical feet consisting of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable; thus, the poem is set in iambic trimeter. The odd-numbered lines contain an extra unstressed syllable at the end: that is, they have "feminine endings." The even-numbered lines form rhyme pairs (here, "lanes"/"veins"), so that each stanza rhymes ABCBDEFE.

  The "Of" that begins lines 2 and 3 (paralleling the "of" in line 1) is the poem's first example of anaphora, or repetition across the beginnings of lines, sentences, etc. The poet will use this device often, both to create rhythmic momentum and to build lists like the catalogue of landscape features in lines 1-3. In a device called asyndeton, the poet omits the conjunction ("and") that would normally fall between lines 2 and 3, preserving the metrical rhythm and making the list more concise.

• Lines 5-8

  Strong love of grey-blue distance,
  Brown streams and soft dim skies—
  I know but cannot share it,
  My love is otherwise.

  

  

• Lines 9-12

  I love a sunburnt country,
  A land of sweeping plains,
  Of ragged mountain ranges,
  Of droughts and flooding rains.

  

  

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• Lines 13-16

  I love her far horizons,
  I love her jewel-sea,
  Her beauty and her terror—
  The wide brown land for me!

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

  The stark white ring-barked forests
  All tragic to the moon,
  The sapphire-misted mountains,
  The hot gold hush of noon.

  

  

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• Lines 21-24

  Green tangle of the brushes,
  Where lithe lianas coil,
  And orchid-laden tree ferns
  Smother the crimson soil.

  

  

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• Lines 25-28

  Core of my heart, my country!
  Her pitiless blue sky,
  When sick at heart, around us,
  We see the cattle die—

  

  

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• Lines 29-32

  But then the grey clouds gather,
  And we can bless again
  The drumming of an army,
  The steady, soaking rain.

  

  

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• Lines 33-36

  Core of my heart, my country!
  Land of the Rainbow Gold,
  For flood and fire and famine,
  She pays us back threefold—

  

  

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• Lines 37-40

  Over the thirsty paddocks,
  Watch, after many days,
  The filmy veil of greenness
  That thickens as we gaze.

  

  

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• Lines 41-44

  An opal-hearted country,
  A wilful, lavish land—
  All you who have not loved her,
  You will not understand—

  

  

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• Lines 45-48

  Though earth holds many splendours,
  Wherever I may die,
  I know to what brown country
  My homing thoughts will fly.

  

  

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“My Country” Symbols

• 

  The Heart

  The heart is a familiar symbol of love and emotions. It can also represent the essence of a person or thing. In "My Country," the speaker repeatedly describes Australia as the "Core of my heart," meaning both that it stirs the speaker's deepest emotions and that it's central to the speaker's identity.

  The speaker's heart is connected with their country in ways that go beyond patriotic pride. Grammatically, the phrase "sick at heart" in the fourth stanza could apply to the speaker, the cattle dying in drought, or both. In this moment, the feelings and experiences of the speaker seem intertwined with the well-being of Australia's animals and land.

  Finally, the speaker describes the country itself as "opal-hearted," comparing its essence to that of the iridescent gemstone the landscape produces. (Australia accounts for the vast majority of the world's opal production.) Symbolically, this phrase suggests that the country is hard and tough—like a stony-hearted person—yet also beautiful and lavishly rewarding.

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“My Country” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Metaphor

  The poem contains a number of metaphors, some of which are obvious and some very subtle. Altogether, these metaphors paint a rich, vivid picture of Australia for the reader.

  Here are a few of the more noticeable examples:

  • In line 14, "jewel-sea" compares the ocean surrounding Australia to a jewel: that is, it's beautiful, glittering, precious, etc.
  • Lines 31-32 compare the "steady, soaking rain" after a drought to "The drumming of an army." That is, the rain makes a loud, repetitive, percussive sound.
  • Lines 39-40 compare the "greenness" that returns after a drought to a "filmy veil [...] that thickens" over the land.

  And here are a few less obvious examples:

  • "The love [...] Is running in your veins" (lines 1-4) is a dead metaphor, a metaphor that's become so common that it doesn't immediately read as figurative anymore. (A related term is cliché.) "Running in your veins" is a conventional way of saying that a trait is part of someone's identity or heritage.
  • The word "ragged" (line 11) compares the jagged shape of mountain ranges to the tattered shape of rags.
  • "Sapphire" and "gold" (lines 19-20) are color words describing shades of blue and yellow, respectively, but they also metaphorically compare Australia's mist to a gemstone and its noon sun to a precious metal (i.e., something beautiful, radiant, etc.).
  • The word "Smother" (line 24) is loosely metaphorical; the tree ferns don't quite asphyxiate the "soil," though they do cluster thickly in it and soak up its nutrients.
  • "Core of my heart" (lines 25, 33) is a twist on the conventional metaphor heart of my heart, which describes something central to one's affections or identity.
  • Finally, there's a bird metaphor embedded in the last two lines. The speaker says that their "homing thoughts" will "fly" back to Australia, like a homing pigeon or other bird that reliably returns to its place of origin.
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Anaphora

  

  
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• Alliteration

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

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• Antithesis

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

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• Asyndeton

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

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"My Country" Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Coppice
• Otherwise
• Sweeping
• Jewel-sea
• Ring-barked
• Sapphire-misted
• Brushes
• Lithe
• Lianas
• Orchid-laden
• Tree ferns
• Rainbow Gold
• Threefold
• Paddocks
• Filmy
• Opal-hearted
• Wilful
• Lavish
• Homing

• Woodland that's cropped and managed by human beings. (Coppicing is a process of cutting down trees and letting them regrow.)

  • See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “My Country”

• Form

  "My Country" consists of six octaves (eight-line stanzas) whose lines follow a strict iambic (da-DUM) meter and an ABCBDEFE rhyme scheme (even-numbered lines rhyme with each other, but odd-numbered lines do not).

  The poem's meter and rhyme scheme place it within the ballad tradition:

  • Ballads are most commonly written in quatrains, but some, like "My Country," use octaves (as if each stanza were two quatrains glued together).
  • Ballads also typically alternate between lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, but all-trimeter (or all-tetrameter) patterns are traditional, too. (More on what this means in the Meter section of this guide.)

  The ballad is a popular form often found in folk verse, children's verse, song lyrics, and the like. In Australia, it features in a particular genre tradition called the "bush ballad," meaning poetry that celebrates the country's wilderness, history, and culture. "My Country" uses language that's less folksy and more "literary" than the average bush ballad, and unlike many bush ballads, it doesn't contain a narrative (it's a lyric poem). Still, it draws on this tradition and echoes its themes of Australian pride.

  The combination of song-like form and patriotic content also makes "My Country" sound a bit like an anthem. Australia's actual national anthem, "Advance Australia Fair," also uses a variation of the ballad form.

• Meter

  The poem uses iambic trimeter throughout. In other words, its lines typically contain three iambs (metrical feet consisting of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable), giving them a "da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM" rhythm. There are occasional variations thrown into the mix, but for the most part, the meter remains very steady—perhaps reflecting the speaker's steadfast national pride.

  The odd-numbered lines in the poem also have something called "feminine endings," meaning they contain an extra unstressed syllable (such as the "-pice" in "coppice"). This contrasts with the "masculine endings" of the even-numbered lines. Here's how all this sounds in lines 1-4:

  The love | of field | and cop- | pice,
  Of green | and sha- | ded lanes,
  Of or- | dered woods | and gar- | dens
  Is run- | ning in | your veins—

  These first four lines follow the iambic trimeter pattern exactly, with no variations. The first variation appears in line 5:

  Strong love | of grey- | blue dis- | tance,

  Notice that there's an extra stressed syllable here: "Strong." The extra stress helps evoke the strength of the love being described!

  Metrical variations don't always correspond directly to meaning in this way; sometimes they just keep a poem's rhythm from becoming too predictable. But some of the other variations in the poem also reinforce meaning, as in lines 25 and 33:

  Core of | my heart, | my coun- | try!

  Here, the line begins with a trochee (a foot consisting of a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable) rather than an iamb. This switch places strong stress on "Core," as if emphasizing that the speaker's country lies at the very core, the very center, of their identity.

• Rhyme Scheme

  The odd-numbered lines in "My Country" are unrhymed, while the even-numbered lines rhyme in pairs. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is:

  ABCBDEFE

  Readers can think of the poem's octaves, or eight-line stanzas, as being made up of two ballad quatrains (which typically rhyme ABCB) stuck together.

  All the rhymes in the poem are exact; there are no imperfect or slant rhymes. Even "again" and "rain" (lines 30 and 32) rhyme perfectly in the poet's native accent, as readers can hear in recordings.

  Like the steady meter, the poem's smooth, consistent rhyming seems to echo the speaker's steadfast patriotism. (The poem's formal regularity is also partly a product of its era; "My Country" was first published in 1908, shortly before the "modernist" movement that made formal experimentation more common in English-language poetry.)

“My Country” Speaker

• The speaker of "My Country" is a proud Australian very much like the poet herself. The poem is written in the first person, but at times, the "I" seems to speak on behalf of all Australians—the "us" or "we" mentioned in lines 27, 30, 36, and 40. One could say, then, that the voice of the poem is both Dorothea Mackellar and a kind of generic Australian.

  The speaker is extremely proud of their country and of its stunning natural landscapes in particular. They recognize that the climate and terrain of Australia can be harsh, but for them, that harshness is part of the country's charm. They embrace their homeland in all its "beauty" and its "terror," and they lovingly describe its features throughout the poem.

  In the first stanza, the speaker also addresses a "you" who prefers a more tame, "ordered" landscape—like the countryside found in the United Kingdom. ("My Country" was inspired by a conversation Mackellar had with a friend after a trip to England.) The speaker "cannot share" the other person's love of such cozy countryside; by implication, they prefer Australia, where they were born, over the UK, where most white Australians' ancestors were born.

  In the last stanza, the speaker addresses a wider audience, taking a proudly defiant attitude toward "All you who have not loved [Australia]." Of course, by thumbing their nose at people who don't "understand" their country, the speaker also implicitly courts readers who do understand it. Unsurprisingly, the poem has proved a popular favorite in Australia!

“My Country” Setting

• The poem's title introduces its setting: "My Country" is Australia, where the poet, Dorothea Mackellar, was born and spent most of her life.

  The speaker describes this setting in lush language and loving tones, devoting special attention to Australia's rugged, beautiful natural landscape. The poem describes this environment from "plains" to "mountain ranges," from "sky" to "jewel-sea." It barely even hints at a human presence, aside from the "ring-barked forests" (forests in which people have killed trees as a form of land management) in lines 17-18 and the "paddocks" (enclosed livestock pastures) in line 37. The emphasis throughout is on Australia's wildness—in contrast with the tame English-style countryside ("shaded lanes," "ordered woods," etc.) described in the first stanza.

  Unlike the UK—where the families of Mackellar and most other white Australians originated—Australia has desert and tropical regions and an often extreme climate. The poem repeatedly emphasizes this aspect of the country, which it calls "sunburnt" and "brown" with heat. It refers to the "hot gold hush of noon" and mentions the "droughts and flooding rains" that appear cyclically, causing "cattle [to] die" and their paddocks to grow "thirsty" before rain and "greenness" return. At its most intense, the country is like a "wilful" but "lavish" deity, sending Australians "fire and flood and famine" but "pay[ing] us back threefold" with wondrous beauty. At its most enchanting, the country is like the mythical land at the end of the "Rainbow."

  Despite the occasional hardships it imposes, then, Australia is the speaker's favorite setting in the world—the "Core of [their] heart" and the greatest of all the "splendours" the "earth holds."

Literary and Historical Context of “My Country”

• Literary Context

  Dorothea Mackellar wrote the first draft of "My Country" when she was just 19 and published the first version (titled "Core of My Heart") when she was 23. The poem had at least two direct sources of inspiration. One was a conversation Mackellar had with a friend (the unnamed "your" in the first stanza), contrasting England and Australia after the two had visited the UK. The other was a rainstorm that ended a drought and caused the "greenness" mentioned in the fifth stanza. In 1965, the poet recalled:

  [T]he land to the horizon became green. I would not have seen this by walking across the paddock, but from the veranda looking to the horizon I could see this taking place. It was actually becoming green. That is why I called it a filmy veil.

  The poem was first published in the London Spectator in 1908, then quickly picked up by newspapers in Australia, where it became an instant hit. Mackellar subsequently republished it in her collections The Closed Door, and Other Verses (1911) and The Witch-Maid, and Other Verses (1914), changing the title and some wording in the third stanza in the process.

  (As a result, the text of the poem varies slightly from edition to edition, with the third stanza sometimes beginning "The tragic ring-barked forests / Stark white beneath the moon" and ending "And orchids deck the tree-tops, / And ferns the warm dark soil." The text in this guide uses the title "My Country" but otherwise preserves the wording of the original 1908 version.)

  With its patriotic fervor and its adaptation of the ballad form, "My Country" draws on the genre traditions of both the anthem and the Australian "bush ballad." The latter is a tradition of folk verse and popular songs celebrating Australia's history, culture, and natural environment (in Australia, "the bush" means the backwoods or wilderness). Much of Mackellar's work falls generally within the tradition of bush balladry or bush poetry. "My Country" remains her most famous poem; "I love a sunburnt country," in particular, is a much-quoted statement of Australian pride.

  Historical Context

  At the time the poem was published (1908), Australia had only recently achieved nationhood within the British Empire. Its British colonies united to become the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 and formally gained self-governing "dominion" status in 1907. Thus, "My Country" celebrates a country whose (relative) independence was still brand new.

  The poem's declared preference for Australian wilderness over tame English countryside might be read as a political statement: an assertion of national pride in the face of Australia's former imperial rulers. It could also be a way of implying that Australians are tougher and more rugged than UK residents, who are accustomed to their "ordered," "soft" environment.

  Mackellar's ancestors, like those of most white Australians, came from the UK. Britain initially colonized what became Australia in the 18th century, establishing a prison colony in modern-day New South Wales. As it colonized the rest of the continent over the following century, it displaced the continent's Aboriginal peoples and killed many thousands through armed conflict and disease. It also asserted control over the continent's natural resources, including timber, gold, and opal.

  Mackellar's patriotic poem omits most of this grim history, though it does mention the continent's "tragic"-looking "ring-barked forests." British colonists used ring-barking—stripping off rings of bark in order to kill trees without felling them—as a method of deforestation and land management. This practice left forests of dead trees standing in the southeast and other areas of the country.

More “My Country” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poet Reads the Poem — Listen to "My Country" recited by Dorothea Mackellar.

  • The Poet's Life — A biography of Mackellar, courtesy of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

  • A Film About the Poet — A short film about Mackellar, via the State Library of New South Wales.

  • An Interview with the Poet — A 1965 interview in which Mackellar recalls the writing of "My Country."

  • The Land of "My Country" — An article by Mackellar's biographer arguing for protection of the natural landscape that inspired "My Country."

  • The Poet's Literary Legacy — Visit the official website of the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards, which includes further information and resources related to the poet.