Song Of A Migrant Fellow Poem by Francis Duggan

I never had the notion that I might be a poet
But of Duhallow countryside in slip shod rhyme I've wrote
And I have heard the skylark pipe in the Summer sky
Above the rushy meadows of green old Lisnaboy.

I've written songs of Australia so called songs some might say
And in Spring in Gippsland paddocks watched the young lambs romp and play
And heard Aussie magpie piping on branch of mountain gray
His distinct notes familiar at dawn of Summer's day.

I'm an ageing migrant fellow from my Homeland far away
But I see the Boggeragh mountains when I visualize each day
I can see old Caherbarnagh and Shrone Paps beyond Rathmore
And I walk through fields and meadows where I've often walked before.

For years I lived west of Millstreet in a place called Claraghatlea
Till the wanderlust possessed me in the old home did not stay
And on a cold day in December when the northern winds blew chill
Left my home just west of Millstreet turned my back on the old hill.

Memories of a childhood close to Nature with the migrant man remain
Male robin with the puffed up orange breast singing in the wind and rain
And the sparrows on barn rafters wove their nests with strands of hay
And the hawthorn quite resplendent in her blossoms of the May.

And blackbird for slugs and worms scrope leaf litter by hedgerow
And in the stream the dipper singing river bird with breast of snow
And with her flowers and blossoms Spring brought her greenery
And singing birds nest building on shrub and bush and tree.

I am just a migrant fellow in my Homeland I did not stay
From the fields by Clara mountain I live many miles away
And the magpie he is fluting in the dawn of bright Spring day
In Belgrave in Victoria on high branch of mountain gray.