For my leaving party I want to send out Australia type quotes on the back of the invites, Ive been looking on BE for ideas and found 2 so far - please take the credit if i got them from you. Can anyone come up with anyone more for for me as i would like to have them on the tables also.


You feel free in Australia. There is great relief in the atmosphere - a relief from tension, from pressure, an absence of control of will or form. The Skies open above you and the areas open around you.

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Ta, Lisa.xx

Only three hours ago......

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366703

This is a haunting poem by Kath Walker, called Corroboree...

Hot day dies, cook time comes.
Now between the sunset and the sleeptime
Time of play about.
The hunters paint black bodies by firelight with designs of meaning
To dance corroboree.
Now didgeridoo compels with haunting drone eager feet to stamp,
Click-sticks click in rhythm to swaying bodies
Dancing corroboree.
Like Spirit things in from the great surrounding dark
Ghost-gums dimly seen stand at the edge of light
Watching corroboree.
Eerie the scene in leaping firelight,
Eerie the sounds in that wild setting
As naked dancers weave stories of the tribe
Into corroboree.

Thanks Buttockup, that is beautiful...

Karma sent,

Lisa.xx

Not really about Australia - but it sums up the move.

"Whatever you can do or dream,
You can
Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it
Begin it now"

Goethe.

I grew up here in Oz. As a kid my nanna worked as a cleaner in a school During school hols we three kids would stay with her, and go to work with her - running amok and eating the teachers cookies while she worked! I always remember this poem on the wall in one of the classrooms. It is a classic Australia poem, the most common verse is bolded for you. It still sends a shiver up my spine when I read it - S.

My Country
by Dorothea McKellar


The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

I just posted the poem 'If' by R. Kipling - that is one of my favourites

Thanks Claire and Richard, Karma sent

Lisa.xx

Thanks Bert and Stella, that poem really appeals to me. I can see why you lik it so much

Thanks, Karma on its way

Lisa.xx

Here's a funny - a childhood rhyme taken from a book

"The night was dark and stormy
the dunny light grew dim.
i heard a crash and then a splash,
good god he's fallen in!"

Bloody oath, I love that poem. Real lump-in-the-throat, tear-in-the-eye stuff. A personal favourite.

Quotes from various Australians...

To be fair, I don't think the Bangis were much of a force in his day - if they were even playing at all.

Does anyone know when they entered the world cricket arena?

Here's one for you.

As I walk down to the beach
I find a spot to sit
Cracking open a bottle of Hann
I think 'Im here now, this is it'

I have spent so long in looking
To see where I fit in
Now Im here Down Under
The place where the parrots sing

The sun is bright and shining
The skies so clear and blue
The feeling that Ive made it
Is my dream come true

Dont be jealous of me
Or want to shake my hand
Because Im in the lucky country
And you're in the Mother Land

Be patient with your visa
It comes to he who waits
And when your turn comes to live here
Johnny will meet ya at our gates