Though I Have Left Millstreet Poem by Francis Duggan

If ever again i will return to Millstreet
So many strangers to me there i would meet
For i have not lived there for close to thirty three years
And i have shed the last of my nostalgic tears

I have good memories of my first home in view of Clara's Hill
And in fancy i can hear the Claramore rill
In Claraghatlea fields by night and by day
On towards the big rivers babbling it's way

Like all migrants i only have memories of what used to be
And though Millstreet i left Millstreet did not leave me
In the old fields i grew to love Nature as a young boy
And learning more of her today i enjoy

It was my love of wander that brought me far south
Of the fields of the rooks and waterways of the brown trout
To this place of emu, koala and kangaroo
And echidna long billed corella and yellow tailed black cockatoo

The birds who does sing every day of the year
The black and white magpies i often does hear
And the magpies larks are birds i often does see
Familiar in their song which sounds like pee wee

In Duhallow i would be a stranger to many today
Some i knew there have migrated and some where the deceased are does lay
The babies when i left there now past their lives prime
I have not been to Millstreet for quite a long time

Far from Claraghatlea where i first saw light of day
The hair on my balding head is silver graY
I only have memories of what used to be
And though i have left Millstreet it did not leave me.