The Great Gift Of Fancy Poem by Francis Duggan

I fancy I can hear the male chaffinch singing at the verge of the wood on a silver birch tree
And over the meadows the dark swallows are flying their swiftness and gracefulness in flight is a pleasure to see
And bluebells and primroses on the ditch of the bohreen and snowdrops as white as the new fallen snow
I thought that my past I had left behind me but my past it is with me where ever I go,
The song of the dipper cannot be mistaken he sings on a rock in the babbling stream
The voice of the bird is a distinctive feature a natural imprint or so it would seem
The old fields and woods I still visit them often it always seems so easy to visualize
The sound of the laughter in the old school playground in our happy lunch hour when we were school boys,
I fancy I can hear the hungry fox barking on a cold starry night in the field by the hill
From the bark of a dog it cannot be mistaken there's something about it that sounds wild and shrill
You can take the boy far away from the valley but the valley in him it will always remain
And in his flights of fancy he pays it a visit and the voice of the cuckoo he hears it again,
Where ever you go to your past it will follow and the great gift of fancy is a beautiful thing
The old wood by my old home has never looked greener and the finches and thrushes they whistle and sing.