It Has Been Twenty One Years Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been twenty one years since I've been in Millstreet and as human years go that's a lengthy span
The years have left me looking that much older and I am and look like an ageing man
On looking back the years have gone so quickly since that cold and windy early December day
Old Clara wore his first snow hat of Winter and fields on the high ground with frost were gray
The day that I left for the Southern Country I thought that I would return in the Spring
When the swallows were back home from their wintering Countries and nesting songbirds whistle, chirp and sing
When the old fields are full of Nature's wild flowers and shy cock pheasant in the rushes crow
And in the stream the dipper he is singing the stream that to the sea going river flow
Twenty one years since I walked the streets of Millstreet even then I was a decade past my prime
The clock ticks on and I am getting older there is no turning back the hands of time
I was a primary school boy of the fifties but as success go I do not have much to show
And since the fifties changes have been happening but that is going back fifty years ago
It has been twenty one years I remember since I left Millstreet on a Winter's day
Old Clara wore his white hat of December and the old bare fields with frost were looking gray.