Francis Duggan Poems

Some religious people do look on as odd
Those who do not believe in the existence of God
They refuse to believe that in an atheist you'll find
A person who can be quite good and kind
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Though to the one God everyone does not pray
God helps those who help themselves the more cynical say
But in what they do say there is truth to be found
Since in the Human World greed does seem to abound.
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The years have left him looking gray
And time on his life ticking away
He is not a wise man 'twould appear
And his wife seems a silly old dear.
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If you look for evil good you cannot see
For your eyes only tell you what they want you in others to see
Of good and bad races you keep telling me
But your opinions are different to mine we see things differently.
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The music of O Carolan I have loved for many years
So sad and yet so beautiful it reduces one to tears
The poor blind harper of the County Meath is one many tend to under-rate
As a composer of beautiful music he is one we ought to celebrate
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Every shower of rain is welcome it's been two months so they say
Since it last rained in Maleny and it's raining there today
And the farmer he feels happy though his paddocks looking bare
And he thanks the God rainmaker that some rain he now can spare.
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I've broken a promise I've made to myself
That I'd return to Ireland in the Spring
But without me grass will grow and flowers will bloom
And birds will build their nests and chirp and sing.
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By the church on the hill some of her ancestors lay
In the old Cullen graveyard so far, far away
In Cullen they lived and in Cullen they died
And their descendants have travelled the World far and wide.
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The smoke of the barby, the smell of frying meat
And even in the shade we perspire in the heat
And I scratch where the mozzies are biting my feet
Far distant from Ireland, North Cork and Millstreet.
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In the sunshine a blackbird is singing in the front garden
on a birch tree
And she lives far south of Duhallow and her old home place of Knocknagree
A widow in her mid to late forties her brown hair is fading to gray
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