Faces From The Past Poem by Francis Duggan

'Twas not the streams and hills that brought me back home
Or the marvellous scenery of the countryside
No it is something that I cannot explain
For my years of absence I have felt inside.

My old friends they seem happy just to see me
And our old friends are the dearest friends of all
Like me they may have aged grown old and grayer
But faces from the past I still recall.

The migrant miss his friends more than his Country
Though we grow apart in absence some might say
But I believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder
And my old friends I still recall today.

It's good to be back in the Town of Millstreet
Though changes have been happening around here
Since I left on that bleak day in December
One of the cold and wet months of the year.

It's good to see some old familiar faces
Though many now I do not seem to know
And like I say the changes have been happening
Since I left almost sixteen years ago.

And Clara hill is still the same old Clara
Long before there ever was a Millstreet Town
He stood there overlooking old Duhallow
In his bracken cloak of purply green to brown.

The hawthorn in her white of May looks lovely
As pretty as I've ever seen before
And song thrush and robin and chaffinch are singing
In the groves of Claraghatlea and Claramore.

I awoke to hear the white backed magpie fluting
In the gray dawn of a cool Autumn day
And I realized I only had been dreaming
Of my Homeland a half a world away.