I Was A Young Man Of The Sixties Poem by Francis Duggan

I was a young man of the sixties and I poached for fish in the Finnow
Till father time left me much slower and to father time I too did bow
And the boys and girls I went to school with they too have known a better day
And from the old green fields of Millstreet some of them too live far away.

In Spring the lark above the rushes he piped all day long in the sky
And the cock pheasant crew by the hedgerow in place where the scutch grass grew high
And the dark backed and white breasted dipper he piped his distinctive and scratchy song
His nest under the bank of the river where old Finnow gurgled along.

The wander bug in me was growing and I dreamed of places far away
And on a rainy July in Duhallow the farmers lost most of their hay
The fields by the river were flooded on a Summer of little sunshine
And it rained until early September though the harvest months were warm and fine.

I was a young man of the sixties and I was approaching my prime
Before I became a Poetaster and I grew addicted to rhyme,
I could tell the birds by their voices and the shy moorhen chirped in the stream
But the lust for the wander was in me and a voice told me follow your dream

In Millstreet the changes keep happening at least that's what I have been told
And the boys and girls I went to school with their children are even growing old
Yet in the leafy groves of Clara the robin will whistle and sing
And the bullfinch will pipe on the hedgerow to herald the birth of the Spring.

The nostalgia in me is fading in time everything fades away
And were I to return to old Millstreet the young people there now would say
Who is the ageing balding fellow the years have left him looking gray
I'd feel like a migrant in my Homeland so here maybe I ought to stay?

I was a young man of the sixties but that was a long time ago
And the boys and girls I went to school with the years on their faces now show
And some of them live far from Millstreet and the fields where the old Finnow flow
And far from the Town by old Clara their children into adults did grow