I Do Never Wish Poem by Francis Duggan

In truth I can say I was a happy boy
And my boyhood years were years I did enjoy
And though happy memories of my youth I retain
I do never wish for to be young again
I never thought then of life's battle ahead
For my joys of life then now within me seems dead
Our innocence long gone before our life's prime
And the bloom of our youth does not last a life-time
To me Nature then was a marvellous thing
On the roadside hedgerow the bullfinch did sing
The Spring in the fields spread her wildflowers of May
And the cuckoo she called in the wood all the day
Life's battle ahead and our youth went too fast
And only in memory we go to the past.