It Has Been More Than Three Decades Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been more than three decades since I was in my prime the years have left me looking gray
And the biological clock on my life ticking on I have known a far better day
In my prime a below average local athlete and not any good at football
But of my time spent in Nature and walks in the fields are memories I love to recall.

I was the dunce of the classroom that I will not deny my favourite hate going to school
Though it did not worry me one little bit to sit upon the dunce's stool
A walk by the river or climb on the hill were things that I used to enjoy
They were happy times and the good memories with me remain of when I was a Duhallow boy.

In Spring the gray and brown dappled song thrush piped on the birch tree the wild feathered songster supreme
And white breasted dipper with the scratchy song by my old home sung in the stream
The boys of the fifties are no longer young their better years now are long gone
But old father time on us does not wait on our lives he keeps ticking on.

The past has gone forever we must live in the now though happy memories we retain
Of when we were younger in the long gone years in memory we visit again
The old fields and old wood beside the old hill the lark carolling in the clear sky
'Til in the naked eye he becomes a small speck as carolling towards the clouds he does fly.