Along the dusty tracks
To where the sun beat down by day
And the sun slew back by night
Of an ancient land with clay red earth that white men never came
Until the time of sailing ships that change the face of this great land
A face that tweren't the same.
But out there in the dusty red earth desert of the wild
A dark man roamed with childer three and wife and family
The tribe for that is what they were
Lived freely off the land
And tended it with care and love
And doused it with their pains
Of lave and loving of this land
These people dark did dwell
And nurture it with passion true
And keep the land and tell
Their childer all of stories from the
Dreamtime land they came
A dingo calls across the plains
The winds howl across the skies and a tree rustles its leaves
Along the road by a dimly lit way
A waterhole gently laps
There comes a creature of the wild to drink in dissaray
Its tail droops and it takes its fill
Of life to slake its thirst
For in this land of red clay earth and soil and gums so tall
This precious water comes to fill the hollows of the land
With billabongs and coolibahs that stand in majesty
Unto a far horizon of wondrous sights to see.
Australia my country!
You are filled with many strange delights and
Those of great beauty
The cockatoo with snowy breats
And parakeets so bold
Their colours like a rainbow
That dance with blue and gold.
A tale to you now will I tell
Of raging thunderstorms
And lightning strikes and floodings
In this land of contrast fell
With heavy downpour
To a dry and arid land
A land so vast and huge and wide
A land with desert storms.
And as I looked up to the sky and saw the clouds did burst
With fervent prayer I asled for more to come to feed the earth
The lightning flashed across the skies
With bright and silver light
And landed on a tall ghost gum
That set the night alight
Then came the men with sacks of cloth
To fight this rolling blaze
A blaze so huge it rolled and span
Out of control of man
All through the nights these men of old
Did fight with all their strength
Their might and power of less accord
To quench the mighty length
Of bushfires burning, burning, burning
That did engulf the land
And after it did take its toll
Of foresty and flora
There are the blackened stumps,
And carcasses fills the nostrils
With burnt out aura
But then, then look! a new shoot comes forth
Comes forth to regenerate
And it will grow, grow tall and strong
Just like its parent grew
For fire is needed to replace
The old ones with the new.
And should you go one starry night
Out in to the far beyond
Remember those who came before
Helped make this future land so bright
A land so filled with contrast
Of power and beauty and might.
