My Country

"My Country" is a poem written by Dorothea Mackellar (1885–1968) at the age of 19 about her love of the Australian landscape.

After travelling through Europe extensively with her father during her teenage years, she started writing the poem in London in 1904[1] and re-wrote it several times before her return to Sydney.

[2] It was reprinted in many Australian newspapers, such as The Sydney Mail & New South Wales Advertiser,[3] who described the poem as a "...clear, ringing, triumphant note of love and trust in [Australia].

The poem is believed to have been inspired in part by Mackellar's love of the Allyn River district in NSW.

[7] A recording of "My Country" made by the radio and TV actor Leonard Teale became so popular in the 1970s that his reading of the first lines of the second stanza were often used to parody him.