Francis Duggan Ballad Poems

I have walked through tougher Harlem where few strangers dare to go
And I've been in London City in the rain and in the snow
And I've worked in inner Melbourne in the searing summer heat
And believe me if I tell you I have earned the bread I eat.
...

Only lived for seven months there but I do remember still
My happy days in Fitzroy towards the left of Clifton Hill
And the good fun at the weekends for my memory serves me well
And the lovely girls I danced with at the Normandy Hotel.
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His only crime was to live good and decent
And the day he was murdered a dream was destroyed
He stood by El Salvador's poor and downtrodden
And he lived for the people and for them he died.
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She lived with her blind mother beside a purling stream
In their little white washed cottage in the Valley of Rosheen
Her hair as dark as raven's wing and her eyes blue as ripened sloes
The sightless widow's only child the lovely maid named Rose.
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It's friday evening from life's cares we'll have a brief leave taking
And lets go to the Basy Pub for hour of merry making
In confines of the Settlers Bar the voice of mirth is ringing
And Pete Atkinson from Dublin Town an Irish song is singing.
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Times were hard and he was poor
In his small farm beside the moor
But he was happy and carefree
The poor, poor farmer Dan Magee.
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The Ballad of Reading Jail by Oscar Wilde is something worth the read
It is a poem of quality a major poem indeed
It's author was a famous man and he lives on in renown
And he spend some time as we well know in the Jail of Reading Town.
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For many years fame and fortune on him smiled
The amazing Irish writer Oscar Wilde
Until his sexual preference had him in Reading Jail
In a place where wealth and fame to nothing avail
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Of the path to a better life they know the way
We must follow our leaders believe what they say
For more jobs for our children more trees must be cut down
For to build more factories in the industrial town
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I'm Francis Duggan plebeian
An unpretentious rustic man
And the only gift god gave to me
Is the gift of poetastry.
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Thomas Hall he was a wandering man
And his restless mind forbid him settle down
And in his brief and wanderlust life span
He became well known in many a town.
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When Oscar Wilde wrote The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
He wrote of a man life had destined to fail
In his great poem Oscar referred to himself in some sort of a way
The good times until his death with him did not stay
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I will tell to you a story as the story was told to me
About a man who lived in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory
He was born and raised in Ireland a true blooded Irishman
And the noble blood of Munster through his big and brave heart ran.
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'Twas old John Mginn that told me of the tragic story of Ann
Daughter of the bold Sinn Feiner Irish freedom fighter Dan
Who led the local I.R.A. in the days of Black and Tan
And was posted by the British as a dangerous hostile man.
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He's coming back poor Wandering Jack
His hair is dirty long and black
He's been in London, Paris, Rome
And now he's on the road back home.
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