Quite Different To Patriotism Poem by Francis Duggan

Quite different to patriotism 'the stay at home' would not understand
The nostalgia that's felt by the migrant when thinking about the Homeland
The nostalgia that gives rise to sadness for what was and cannot be never more
She fancy she hears the gulls calling above the cliffs of the Homeshore.

Her son and daughter in their early twenties and the clock on her life ticking on
Just a few years short of the fifty her better days surely are gone
In this big City she goes unnoticed she can recall a time when she
Was known and liked by everybody in her old home Village by the sea.

A forty eight years old divorcee she is one who knows about life
Her ex husband left her for a younger woman though to him she was a good wife
She has vowed to never re-marry and she will not give love one more try
Her marriage break-up left her shattered once bitten they say twice shy.

Her teen years were surely her happiest in her old Village far away
But back there now she would feel a stranger and here she is destined to stay
She looks well for one in her late forties with brown dye she covers her gray
Time does not wait for anybody the young even grow old one day.

Quite different to patriotism nostalgia is hard to explain
The migrant is far from the Homeland but the love of Homeland with her does remain
When she was a young one of nineteen she left the Village by the sea
On a morning in Spring when the robin was singing upon the birch tree.