I'M Left With The Happy Memories Poem by Francis Duggan

I recall the crickets chirping and the scent of new mown hay
In the meadows of my childhood years ago and far away
And the dark winged swallows singing circling in the sunny sky
And I all alone with Mother Nature on a morning in July.

That was back in the mid fifties I was nine years going on ten
Young and innocent and happy I loved Mother Nature then
I could hear the corncrake calling where the meadow grass was high
And the dipper bird was piping in the stream at Lisnaboy

I looked forward to the Summer and my too brief holiday
On the farm with uncle Dan and aunty Mary in the meadow crowering hay
They have gone to the Grim Reaper under Cullen earth they lay
And I'm left with the happy memories though the years have left me gray.

I'm left with the happy memories of what was and used to be
When the robin piped his finest on the flowering chestnut tree
And wild honeybees gathering nectar from the hosts of wildering flowers
That were blooming bright and lovely freshened by the recent showers.

Of my childhood in Duhallow the good memories remain
And the places I loved dearly I re-visit them again
And I hear the cuckoo calling and I watch the swallows fly
O'er the old fields and old meadows far away in Lisnaboy.