Francis Duggan Nostalgic Poems

His old Shire from the City a three hours drive and nostalgia can be a strange thing
For he miss the wide brown paddocks where the brown singing bushlark sing
He is doing his best to settle in to life in the big Town
Where all day and night on the busy street traffic buzz up and down
...

In his nostalgic fligths of fancy he see the old bohreen
And the old fields and the valleys in their many shades of green
And the hawthorns trees resplendent in their fragile white blossoms of the May
Here he will always be a migrant from a Country far away.
...

Do you feel nostalgic when life has you down
And you think of old friends in your distant hometown
And the people you love that you've not seen for years
Do such memories always have you close to tears
...

He hails from a Mountain Town far north of here
Where weather-wise the Winters are windy, cold, wet and severe
But opposed to the weather the people of his Hometown at heart warm and kind
And better than them one could not hope to find
...

He said to me your accent is strong and your hair silver gray
And do you miss your old Homeland from here far away
And he added out of Australia for a long period of time i could not stay
I said to him i do go home every day
...

Ageing nostalgic migrants i do meet every day
Reminiscing on their old homelands far away
Quite close to tears at memories of the past
And the clocks on their lives ever ticking on fast
...

Have you ever felt nostalgic for your old homeplace
Though nowadays there your's would be a stranger's face
And despite years of absence the memories remain
Of places and faces you will not see again
...

Talking of the past brings them close to tears
The people who yearn for the long lost years
But to the human existence there is such a brief prime
And only in fancy can they go back in time
...

Have you in your nostalgic moments felt quite close to tears
When you thought of your friends of long departed years
Some of them deceased and some showing age decay
And time ticks along as the wise one does say
...

Have you ever felt nostalgic for your first homeplace
Though today there to many yours would be a stranger's face
Since the young generation there you would not know
In many years of absence in their old home-place migrants as strangers do grow
...

Tonight I feel a bit nostalgic I have drunk one or two too many beers
I think of the people I once knew I go back the decades of years
The people I met in my travels good memories of them I retain
And them I will always remember though we never may meet again.
...

'Tis said that the milk of the young thistle for ailments has a cure
They are to be found in the Spring in the fields of Annagloor
When Nature's countless wildflowers in their billions are seen
In fields and by hedgerow and on ditch by bohreen.
...

Overlooking Duhallow and Sliabh Luachra and overlooking Millstreet Town
How often in my younger years I remember I often climbed to Clara's Cross and ran all the way down
Through the high fields of Claramore and Claraghatlea but back then I was in my prime
And I too have grown that much slower my master is old father time.
...

How can you feel nostalgic when you can visualize
When the familiar faces are in your inner eyes
As you walk in the Hometown your friends again you meet
And you feel very much at home on a familiar street.
...

In flights of nostalgic fancy I see them every day
Those old hills of my younger years far north and far away
Overlooking the green countryside to memory I recall
Too high and rough for men to plough them they haven't changed at all.
...

I am not nostalgic person though my past still clings to me
And I still hear the chaffinch singing on the leafy alder tree
And though he sings in a green valley more than half a World away
He is near me very near me in my heart he sings today.
...