Colour by Dorothea Mackellar

This poem, Colour by Dorothea Mackellar is about the many beauties of the world and how it is due to colour. This poem is made up of 8 stanzas and is free verse
There are many themes that flow throught this poem and they are based on Nostalgia, reminiscing, pleasantly surprised and wonder. These themes relate to different stanzas throughout the poem. In the 1st stanza the poet introduces the concept that colour beautifies life and how it can impact on one. It means that we, as humans have taken colour as a privilege and even the sofetest and lighestest shade sof colours matter and are importnant as others and that the thought of colour and the different colours will never go away. This is proved with the line "That their soft dyes have steeped my soul in colour That will not pass away ". It also means the colours will never leave my memory and I have seen all these things in my day-to-day life and not realised it's beauty. In the 2nd stanza the poet describes the australian country where she conveys the slightest hint of patriosim which is refereenced in her second poem "my Country". The audience also get the feeling of her love for the country when she loningly and lovingly describes the many different points of the environment. also in the second stanza she uses the line " fenceless plain" which not only states the obvious imagery but means the Australian country has no owner or ownersihp; it is free. In the 3rd stanza the poet describes the beauty of the beach and the theme of this poem is pleasantly surprised and nostalgic of the beach and her memories of it. she is pleasantly surprised and is iin wonder of the the beauty wiht holds her to the spot. This can be proved when she lovingly descibes, like in the above stanza, the many points of environment the beach is renowned to have. This is proved when she uses the line "enticing for weary feet". This line also means that the water us used to soothe wounds with "weary feet" being symbolic of every emotional and physical injury. In the fourth stanza the poet describes the beauty of various crystals. The poet gives the feeling that even though all crystals are different they are all beautiful in their different ways. This is symbolic of real life of everyone being different but beautiful in their own way. In the 5th stanza the poet describes the various australian bush trees, and even includes the names. she uses the line " Of plain-land gorgeous with a lovely poison,The evil Darling pea.". The meaing of the 6th stanza is that the poet asks the colours ot help her soothe her wen she is tired and it describes the everchanging rainbow of colours in the sky and how they change colours at different times of the day. "Floating on my soothed eyes". In the 7th stanza the main message is that no matter how bad your situation is and how dire and bleak the outlook is colour always helps birghten the situation and in turn helps you succeed. The final stanza is about thanking god for creating colour and the beauty of colour and giving the poet the ability to remeber and full yimmerse herself in colour even though it was impossible to see it. Form this it can be proved that she is very religious and christian. The main character is herself as she explores the diverse range of colours.

The mood of this poem is Nostalgia and captivated at the many wonders of colour. the poet is nostalgic as she remembers all types of colours and it also gets the hnt of patriosim in the 2nd stanza as she describes the australian country.

the poet uses various poetic techniques throughout the poem "colour". the structure of this poem is free verse and is made up of 4 lined, 8 stanzas. The poet chooses words so they reflect the mood of the stanza or poem. she separates her stanzas by describing different types of colours, for example in the 2nd stanza she descrives the australian country and in the 3rd stanza she moves on to describing the beach. To represent nostalgia the poet uses past tense like "have watched" in the 1st stanza to set up for the poem that she is remembering from the past the beautiful colours. The poet uses many descriptive words and imagery to describe the colours and objects that she remembers. All descriptive words are appropriate to the object she is describing for example " great saffron sunset clouds" or "faintest, coolest lilac". The words she uses to describe the objects interact with the audience and gets them to try and remember the objects and she uses the descriptive words to convey this. This also means the language is vivid. The poet also uses a lot of imagery throughout the poem via the language. with ever stanza the audience gets a different image of what the poet is describing. In the 1st stanza an older man or woman sits down and go on a journey back to there childhood/ earlier in life to remember colour, this is proved by the line "the lovely things that I have watched unthinking". the 2nd stanza imagery is a beautiful red sunset and before it numerous beautiful australian flowers in their prime, surrounded by australian green grass not a fence in sight. also dewey hills beautiful and vibrant in colour representing beginning again after hardship- after rain. the imagery of the 3rd stanza is the clearness and tranquility of the sky on the beach and how the beach stretches on forever and the chain of beaches is never broken. the sand is a beautiful orangey- yellow and next to it lies the foam. the 4th stanza imagery is that of various crystals and moonstones all in the colour of a rainbow. the 5th stanza refers back to the imagery of the 2nd stanza with australian trees in bloom- jacarandas in purple and the beauty and danger of deadly plants all found in the australian country. the audience sees in the 6th stanza closed eyelids and the distant merging of the colours of the skies throughout the day. many metaphors and similes are used throuhgout this poem. in the 5th stanza the metaphor is " oleanders or a wide purple sea" and an example of a simile is " yellow as sunburnt wheat". These similes and metaphors help with the imagery as it gives the audience the chance to imagine these objects. Personification is used when describing the foam of the beach and using 'cream' to give some description of the actions the foam makes