I just had to look her up, and what I found amazed me. Frankly, I'm not much into poetry. I've never really understood it, I guess. I'd rather read good prose anytime. But the poems I read from her were so moving, so touching ... it was obvious that she had worked hard to make sure every word was in just the right place to carry the exact shade of meaning she wanted. Her poems don't just paint pictures, they tug at my heart and pull me into her pictures.
I'll quote a couple of her shorter poems here, and if you want more I'll suggest The Official Dorothea Mackellar Site.
The Waiting Life
Since it befell, with work and strife
I had not time to live my life
I turned away from it until
Work should be done and strife be still.
My hands and head for use are free,
Nor does my own life worry me,
But docile as a spaniel waits
Until this present stress abates.
Tranquil it breathes, and waits, I know,
With all its joy contained. But oh
I hope when I have time to play
My life will not have run away!
This next one really surprised me at how much it touched my emotions.
An Old Song
The almond bloom is overpast, the apple blossoms blow.
I never loved but one man, and I never told him so.
My flowers will never come to fruit, but I have kept my pride -
A little, cold, and lonely thing, and I have naught beside.
The spring-wind caught my flowering dreams, they lightly blew away.
I never had but one true love, and he died yesterday.
If you have no time to read any more of her poetry, I hope you can at least read about "a sunburnt country" in My Country, which is probably her most famous poem.
