The speaker of "Australia 1970" begins the poem by addressing the "wild country" of Australia directly. This apostrophe turns Australia into a living, breathing character in the poem—one that the speaker desperately wants to fight back against its human oppressors.
Some historical context is helpful to understand what's happening here. This "wild country" refers to the natural landscapes that European settlers in Australia began cutting away at almost as soon as they arrived in the late 1700s. Prior to their arrival, the landscape was rugged, dangerous, and untamed. Native populations lived in harmony with the land, but the settlers, missing the pastoral landscapes they'd left behind, were afraid of Australia's wilderness and sought to conquer it.
In calling for this "wild country" to die "like the eaglehawk," an aggressive bird of prey native to Australia, the speaker is calling for the country to go down fighting, to remain "dangerous till the last breath's gone." She doesn't want to see the wilderness just roll over and give up; the speaker doesn't know if Australia's natural landscapes will survive, but if they're going to die, they should at least die "clawing and striking." Indeed, the speaker wants to see the land "cursing [its] captor through a raging eye."
The sounds of these lines make them feel all the more ferocious, with the pounding /d/ alliteration of "die" and "dangerous" and the sharp /k/ alliteration of "clawing," "cursing," and "captor" (plus the consonance of "eaglehawk" and "striking"). Readers can hear the speaker's fury rippling off the page. The anaphora of the word "Die" also makes the speaker's words feel insistent and passionate.
This stanza establishes the poem's form: "Australia 1970" consists of quatrains (four-line stanzas). The rhyme scheme here is ABCC: the last two lines of the stanza rhyme with each other ("Die"/"eye"). The speaker will play with this pattern throughout the poem, keeping readers' on their toes.
Finally, while the poem's meter is ultimately inconsistent, there are lots of trochees (stressed-unstressed) throughout. Here, each line begins with a stressed beat: "Die," "dangerous," "clawing," "cursing." These pounding beats make the poem feel forceful and grant it a passionate, propulsive energy.