Francis Duggan Poems

He's worked for bosses all of his working life poor Johnny
And now he walks with the aid of walking cane
His fingers bent and knobby from arthritis
And he feels stiff all over from work strain.
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We ought to learn from life and Nature every day
If to knowledge we keep an open mind
For life and Nature they go hand in hand
And 'twould seem to me they are one of a kind.
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Irish man of letters Oscar Wilde
On him fame and fortune smiled
He won glory and renown
Beyond the sea in London Town.
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And what is man but animal a descendant of ape
A creature of this Planet earth with monkey build and shape
And what is man but mortal with brief so brief life span?
Like flowers of Spring he live short while the earth born creature man.
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Who threw the dead calf in the water
That's how plague and sickness is bred
One would have thought that the bone lazy farmer
Would have buried the creature instead
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Old Dorothy the cat is getting weary
And she is not as nimble as she used to be
And catching mice has never felt such hard work
And she finds it harder now to climb a tree.
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I have sung songs of Duhallow and the beauty I have seen
When the woods were green and leafy and the birds piped in Dereen
But the memories keep fading they grow dimmer by the day
Like the rose that bloom for brief while and then quickly fade away.
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Some people have this inborn yearn for travel
For wanderlust there is not any cure
But I still envy all those stay at home types
And I still miss the fields of Annagloor.
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Beauty can be found in unexpected places
The hills around her home were wild and rough
But old people say the finest they remember
To walk the mountain road near Barraduff.
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You've heard about the great Susie Maroney
Australians feel proud at the mention of her name
The first to swim from Cuba to the U.S.
She's in her prime and in the hall of fame.
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