If I Should Go Back To My Hometown Poem by Francis Duggan

If I should go back to my Hometown some even might ask who is he?
For I've not lived there for many years and not many there now would know me,
Many Of those I've known gone to the reaper whilst others are growing old and gray
And there now a new generation are fast approaching their prime day.

But Clara that silent and ancient mountain I know remains in the same place
And he would not have changed with the passing of the Seasons the bracken still growing on his face
I often climbed to the cross on his summit when I was a Primary school going boy
And picked whortleberries the dark fruit of the heather in late June and all through July.

And Finnow would flow through Cloghoula through fields and groves near Millstreet Town
And babble along by the hedgerows where in Spring dunnock in his cloak of brown
Is singing for to proclaim his borders and for to establish his territory
And birds sing not for love of singing but to defend their borders us humans can't see.

If I should go back to my Hometown so few there would know me by name
And those I know would have grown older suppose few things do stay the same
But the fields and the rivers and the old hill I imagine would not have changed at all
And on the tall trees on their stick nests the rooks would be cawing at nightfall.