It Used To Be Home For Me Poem by Francis Duggan

It used to be home for me Seasons ago how quickly the years seem to fly
And near two decades have passed since I last heard the lark above Clara hill in July
In Millstreet Town I'd feel a stranger today great changes have been happening there
Many of those I knew to the reaper have gone and others are living elsewhere.

Through old Claraghatlea the chilly winds blow less than a week from Christmas day
The old fields at morning from the overnight freeze are wearing their frosty cloak of gray
The cattle in the farm sheds I fancy I hear bellowing for silage and hay
I can only visualize the life I once knew though time sees me further away

From what I once knew and what I once loved but time for us never does wait
The life that we live and we presently know is the life that we choose to create
The stay at home people I envy a bit the stay at home man and his wife
In their own hometown their children they raise content in a sedentary life.

The wanderlust it is still in me today of far away places I dream
At this time of year in Duhallow 'tis cold and the dipper doesn't sing in the stream
The redwings are back on their wintering ground the red and ripened berry holly they eat
And the Finnow bank high keeps on gurgling along through the fields by the Town of Millstreet.

It used to be home for me Seasons ago but nothing in life stays the same
I left for adventure and little else more though not much of adventure to my name
So much of the World I never will see and the clock on my life is ticking on
I live in the present and little else more since the past it is forever gone.