Manuscript book of seventeen illuminated and illustrated poems by Australian authors. Father Leo Hayes commissioned the book of his favourite Australian poems from artist Ella Lilian Pedersen. Hayes wanted it done in the manner of the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. Each of the 17 poems chosen by Father Hayes has been written in calligraphy with accompanying illustrations depicting the location or subject of each poem. Pedersen crafted a tooled leather binding with ornamentation in pewter studded with semi-precious stones, including opals and agates, collected by Father Hayes when he was parish priest in Crows Nest. The original cover was damaged, and the central panel was replaced in the early 2000s by book restorer Anne Clonnan with one remaining gemstone.

Poems: The first comers there / Margaret Curran. -- Carnarvon deep gorges / Bertha Butler. -- Love in a cottage / Daniel Henry Deniehy. -- The frog pool / James Devaney. -- Toowoomba dark purple / George Essex Evans. -- Where the pelican builds / Mary Hannay Foott. -- The Waradgery tribe / Mary Gilmore. -- Taralga / Mary Gilmore. -- When winter comes to Queensland / Alice Gore-Jones. -- My country / Dorothea Mackellar. -- Colour / Dorothea Mackellar. -- The gentle water bird (for Mary Gilmore) / John Shaw Neilson. -- Old salt / Lydia M. D. O'Neil. -- The way of it / D. L. Waraker. -- In September Queensland Bush / D. L. Waraker. -- Rain magic / Frances Dunn. -- Waratah and wattle / Henry Lawson.

An illuminated leaf from a book of hours on vellum. Both recto and verso contain 14 lines of Latin text, with initials rubricated in red and blue, heightened in gold and decorated borders. This page originates from a book of hours; a devotional Christian book used to celebrate the eight canonical hours in a private context. The page probably displays part of the Hours of the Holy Cross, an often included additional text.