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This is a poem from The Singing Garden (1935), in which Dennis meditates on the tall mountain ash gums surrounding his garden at Toolangi, near Melbourne, Australia.

The conservative sense of an intertwined love of nature and national feeling is strongly evoked in this poem. I also like in Green Walls the positive portrayal of a strong, protective masculinity, handed down from father to son.

Notes: Gang-gangs are a kind of cockatoo; Anzacs were Australian (and New Zealand) soldiers of WWI; Diggers is simply a nickname for Australian soldiers.

I love all gum-trees well. But best of all,
I love the tough old warriors that tower
About these lawns, to make a great green wall
And guard, like sentries, this exotic bower
Of shrub and fern and flower.
These are my land's own sons, lean, straight and tall,
Where crimson parrots and grey gang-gangs call
Thro' many a sunlit hour.

My friends, these grave old veterans, scarred and stern,
Changeless throughout the changing seasons they.
But at their knees their tall sons lift and yearn─
Slim spars and saplings─prone to sport and sway
Like carefree boys at play;
Waxing in beauty when their young locks turn
To crimson, and, like beacon fires burn
To deck Spring's holiday.

I think of Anzacs when the dusk comes down
Upon the gums─of Anzacs tough and tall.
Guarding this gateway, Diggers strong and brown.
And when, thro' Winter's thunderings, sounds their call,
Like Anzacs, too, they fall ...
Their ranks grow thin upon the hill's high crown:
My sentinels! But, where those ramparts frown,
Their stout sons mend the wall.

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