The River Poem by Francis Duggan

Down through bare fields and by many a hedgerow the streams from the high country flow
Down to join and swell the big river that into a huge water-way grow
On it's long journey to the ocean it babbles along night and day
From it's birth-place in the high valley saltwater seems quite a long way,
It has outlived generations of people the Seasons they come and they go
How old is the very old river the answer anyone does not know
Perhaps it has been flowing forever millions of years before the first human was born
By the hedges and through the old fields forever it has babbled on since time's first morn,
The old poets have sung of the river the river that has not aged in time
Their bones long resting in Earth's bosom and the river will outlive their rhyme
It babbles on downland forever from the high Country to the vast sea
And when people talk of the river they do not talk of mortality,
The human life span it seems such a short span the Seasons they come and they go
But the river born in the high country forever to the ocean flow.