On An Old Country Cemetery Poem by Francis Duggan

I visited an old country cemetery today
Just out of curiosity as I was on my way
In my ageing car to a big town by the sea
The quaint burial ground seemed interesting to me.

Most of the graves there over one hundred years old
Poor people whose stories will never be told
An unkept graveyard by a scrubby brown hill
In a place change had passed as if time there stood still.

Their bones for years have not felt the sunshine
I thought to myself their fate will be mine
The day it will come when the birds I won't hear
But of death it is only the fear we do fear.

A warm and sunny evening in the late Spring
On a blackwood tree a blackbird did sing
As I walked to my car with the sun on my face
From the ground of the dead in a quiet country place.