Francis Duggan Poems

When one talks of county Armagh I think of John Tarrant's wife Eileen
And the wildering flowers that bloom in Spring by unpolluted stream
And rain and wind and showers of hail and sunshine in between
And a County fresh and beautiful in a Land that's Evergreen.
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The coalminer's widow Joan is getting on in years
Though she's not one to use dyes to hide her gray
She still pushes her shopping trolley to and from the general store
And I see her often though not every day.
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Make the most of your young years time ticks on and on
At the stroke of midnight today will have gone
And who is to know what tomorrow will bring
The future remains as an uncertain thing
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It does speak every language why otherwise pretend
The one with plenty of money is never short of a friend
That the poor have few friends only true for to say
Money speaks every language it is always this way
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Just hearing them singing in the backyard today
Their twittering songs take me to a place far away
In groves of Duhallow in Summer's prime
Their kin birds i heard singing many a time
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In her early fifties Kate big Bill Bago's wife
She does have a face that is saddened from life
They had one offspring six years ago their son Dave
From a drug overdose went to an early grave
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Home to badger and rook and the silver backed crow
The flat rushy fields where the Blackwater flow
On it's way through Duhallow in north Cork towards Youghal sixty kilometers or more
To join with saltwater at the Atlantic shore
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Though some tell me writing without pay is a waste of time
I feel that i am one who was born to pen rhyme
One reason i add to my numbers of rhymes every day
Without recognition or any hope of pay
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In Nature there is always beauty to see
The sunlight on the glossy green leaves of the tree
With the sun on their dark wings chirping as they fly
The swallows chasing flying insects in the blue and gray sky
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In your moments of maudlin nostalgia have you shed private tears
As you thought of the past and the long gone happy years
When with your young friends childhood games you did play
In the groves and the parks of the town far away
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