From My First Homeplace Poem by Francis Duggan

From my first home-place Claraghatlea i live far away
And to many i would be a stranger there today
Where i grew to love Nature when i was a boy
And learning of her ways today i enjoy

In Claramore i often went hunting with Pudsy our brown dog
She often chased a hare in Dick Pomeroy's bog
And though Pudsy lacked in speed she was not lacking in will
But a hare in her lifetime she never did kill

Most of the mentors of my young years at rest forever lay
And time has left me looking aging and gray
And though the good memories of what used to be with us stay
We can only live in the now as the wise one does say

Yet in fancy on a Spring twilight in a field by the River Finnow
I can hear the soft lowing to her calf of a cow
As with his tail feathers the male snipe in a courtship display makes a drumming sound
As above the bog he flies around and around

Of the fields of the badger and waterways of the brown trout
My first home-place Claraghatlea i am living far south
And only the memories with me now remain
Of faces and places i may not see again.