Australia 1970

death power ode dark

Australia 1970 - meaning Summary

Nature's Revenge and Mutual Ruin

Judith Wright's Australia 1970 addresses settler violence against the land and its consequences. The speaker portrays the country as wounded and striking back even while being destroyed by industry and colonization. The poem links ecological devastation with human moral decay, arguing that conquerors also poison themselves. It concludes by valuing the harsh, surviving forces, drought, dust, and wild animals that continue to resist and expose human ruin.

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Die, wild country, like the eaglehawk, dangerous till the last breath’s gone, clawing and striking. Die cursing your captor through a raging eye. Die like the tigersnake that hisses such pure hatred from its pain as fills the killer’s dreams with fear like suicide’s invading stain. Suffer, wild country, like the ironwood that gaps the dozer-blade. I see your living soil ebb with the tree to naked poverty. Die like the soldier-ant mindless and faithful to your million years. Though we corrupt you with our torturing mind. stay obstinate; stay blind. For we are conquerors and self-poisoners more than scorpion or snake and dying of the venoms that we make even while you die of us. I praise the scoring drought, the flying dust, the drying creek, the furious animal, that they oppose us still; that we are ruined by the thing we kill.