When I have died build me no monument
But let the natural grasses shroud my grave,
With salt winds of the sea to meet the tang
Of gums and oaks and ti-trees where the laugh
of kookaburras echoes. Come not here
with mournful mien and flowers of the dead
But deck the spot with greenness and pass on,
Remembering I loved Australia's skies,
Her little creeks and falls, her singing birds,
Her waving wheatfields, and her high blue hills.
I ask no fame, no poet's panegyric –
I would but live in hearts that knew me best.
Frank Francis (1943)