
Farewell, old hills! No more my feet shall tread you
To find the dingo’s den or emu’s nest;
Beneath the eucalypts that overspread you,
No twilight-time shall find me there at rest.
But I shall think of you in far-off islands,
And love you still though seas between us swell.
The wind that blows across the lonely highlands
Echoes, ‘Farewell!’
Good-bye old hills! Long since I learned to love you,
In calm or when the lightnings wreathed you ‘round;
When summer’s happy song-birds flew above you,
Or when your rocks hurled back the thunder’s sound.
And I shall think of you where I am going,
And dream of you beneath an alien sky.
The wind across the lonely highlands blowing
Answers, ‘Goodbye!’
Lydia O'Neil (1924)