If she is known for nothing else, Dorothea Mackellar will be forever known in Australia for her poem, 'My Country' It's likely that a large swath of the population are familiar with the second verse (often thought to be the opening stanza) which begins 'I love a sunburnt country.' It is still the meat of national days, advertising people and may still even get a guernsey in primary schools and high schools. It is also one of those pieces of writing which seeps into a nation's consciousness, forever to be somewhere in the background.

Mackellar is sometimes portrayed as a one-poem poet, a foolish misrepresentation at best. There is no  doubt that she wrote in a pre-modern tradition, though there is nothing wrong with that. I am sure that Ezra Pound would find her verse appalling, but it is still appealing in the same way that any poet from the period is. And she also had the distinction of not being a fascist.

I was surprised to find her first published poem in Harper's Monthly Magazine, dating from July 1903. It was written in response to the death of her brother Keith in the Boer War. Considering she was only 15 at the time, I thinks it's a little gem, bespeaking a considerable yet nascent talent emerging.

When it Comes

How would I like to die, to die?

Without a cry,

In a hard fought-fight where blows are dealt

And the death-strokes less than a girl's kiss felt -

So would I die.

So would I like to die, but where?

In the open plain, in the open air.

Where the red blood soaks through the thirsty grass,

And the wild things tread my grave as they pass -

There would I die.

When would I like to die? At night,

A moonless night.

The still-white star-shine overhead,

And underneath the still-white dead.

There would I die.

I think she is certainly worth a second look.