It Has Been Twenty Years Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been twenty years at least since I walked the old bohreen
Yet little of the bigger World I can claim to have seen
From the old fields of Claraghatlea I now live far away
But life goes on as usual in the old Townland today,
It has been twenty years at least since I heard the robin sing
And see the rooks on the high beech trees build their stick nests in the Spring
Yet I can mentally visualize the babble of the rill
Flowing down to the big river by the hedgerows down the hill
It has been twenty years at least since I heard the tiny wren
His big bird song echoing on the bushes of the glen
The wanderlust was in me I left the Homeland shore
And said goodbye to Clara hill above old Claramore
In the old fields by the river the grass grows lush and green
Yet so little of the bigger World I can claim to have seen.