Dorothea Mackellar was born at Point Piper, Sydney to a well-to-do family, who provided her with the independent means to be a writer. While city-based, much of her inspiration came from her brother's farm at Gunnedah in northern New South Wales. The poem, "The Colours of Light" was published in 1914 in The Witch-Maid & Other Verses. The poem rejoices not in England, where "all the colours are low in pitch", but in the intense light and hues of Australia, "pitched in a higher key", from golden wattle to cobalt skies and azure mist.