If By Chance There Is A Life Hereafter Poem by Francis Duggan

If by chance there is a life hereafter I'll settle for an eternity of hell
As long as Satan gives me pen and paper and allows me to pen doggerel
To pen stuff of a poet unworthy of the Earthly experiences I've had
Though my fellow condemned may well laugh at me and tell me my verses are bad.

I'll bore them to tears with my doggerels of my Earthly life centuries ago
In the fields of Millstreet in Duhallow where the waters of the Finnow flow
Through Inchaleigh, Coomlogane, Claraghatlea and Liscreagh as to the Blackwater it winds it's way
And though a poem will live on forever a doggerel will die in a day.

I'll write of how I felled pine trees by Mushera an old mountain as old as time
An old hill in the Boggeragh ranges that I glorified in bad rhyme
And of how I picked potatoes in St Davids in South Wales by the Atlantic sea
All I need is a pen and paper 'tis easy to satisfy me.

I'll write of my years in Victoria where I grew to be feeble and old
And of the large mobs of roos in Baxter's land a marvellous sight to behold
Them hopping across the brown paddocks as fast as a speedy greyhound
One can only watch on in amazement them cover twenty metres in every big bound.

If by chance there is a life hereafter and I who on Earth could not win
In Hell must pay the price for failure for failure's a terrible sin
I will not even be unhappy if I have a notebook and pen
For to write of the Nature I once knew and the song of the robin and wren.