Dan And Mary Ellen Poem by Francis Duggan

With fondness I remember my aunt Mary Ellen the woman married to my uncle Dan
She was my role model and mentor long before I grew into a man
She taught me old songs from her childhood and poems to me she did recite
And she gave me valuable insights on Nature before I learned how to read and to write.

She and Dan in life did have their crosses their only child a girl in her childhood died
Their happiness at the birth of their daughter by the reaper's scythe to them denied
But Mary she got on with her life and her cross she bravely did bear
And her sense of loss never made her feel bitter and she never said life was unfair.

A lover of old poems and stories she knew the words of many a song
That she used to sing by the turf fire on Winter nights cold, wet, windy and long
She recited poems of the bards of Sliabh Luachra old greats from the centuries ago
So wise and knowledgeable for one self educated and so much about life she did know.

With Dan whom she spent many Seasons in the grave-yard at Cullen she lay
I mourned at the news of their passing though from Lisnaboy I live far away
They were generous with their wisdom and their knowledge of life they passed on down
And at peace their bones now rest in Cullen some seven miles from Millstreet Town.