Early February In Duhallow Poem by Francis Duggan

So many of my boyhood mentors to the Reaper have gone
But life in Duhallow as usual goes on
And people like the Seasons they come and they go
And old Araglen on to the Blackwater flow.

Through fields of Duhallow cold Winter winds blow
And old Caherbarnagh is covered in snow
The Paps of Sliabh Luachra wear their February white
And a thin coat of ice on the pond from the frost overnight.

In Farmyards in Duhallow all through the cold day
The cattle are bellowing for silage and hay
And the dipper is silent in the flooded rill
That rushes towards the river down the field by the hill.

Early February in Duhallow is a cold and wet time of year
The storm in the Woodland I fancy I hear
And though the calendar Spring less than a month away
Bare fields in the morning with frost looking gray.

Of early February in Duhallow the memories remain
Of the sleet and the snow and the frost and the rain
And through the bare fields the cold Winter winds blow
And the Finnow bank high to the Blackwater flow.