Francis Duggan Poems

It is Spring now in the Northlands the Northlands far away
And the hawthorns are heavily laden in their white blooms of the May
And the hooded crow is cawing in his cloak of black and gray
And the white breasted dipper singing in the river all the day.
...

The sun it does seem to be struggling through the dark gray clouds for to shine
And though rain is in the weather forecast the day it is holding out fine
'Tis the typical sort of weather one expects of Victoria's Fall
Threatening to rain very often though on the dry side overall
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The G A A fans have their own heroes of for to sing
In Gaelic Football Mick O Connell in Hurling Christy Ring
In Boxing Sugar Ray Robinson knew of Worldwide fame
And Babe Ruth's lives on as a great Baseball name
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By the church on the hill some of her ancestors lay
In the old Cullen graveyard so far, far away
In Cullen they lived and in Cullen they died
And their descendants have travelled the World far and wide.
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The smoke of the barby, the smell of frying meat
And even in the shade we perspire in the heat
And I scratch where the mozzies are biting my feet
Far distant from Ireland, North Cork and Millstreet.
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In the sunshine a blackbird is singing in the front garden
on a birch tree
And she lives far south of Duhallow and her old home place of Knocknagree
A widow in her mid to late forties her brown hair is fading to gray
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The wanderlust is in him he is young and carefree
He's now in sunny Queensland deep diving out at sea
He's been to Asia, North America and Europe his next port of call Japan
For one in his young twenties he's a well travelled man.
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She loves green Mother Nature with all her heart and soul
And in the fight to save Birdsland from the developers she played a leading role
And to the cause of Nature she remains ever true
The noble Betty Marsden her equals only few.
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Ned Kelly perhaps the best known Australian though in old Melbourne jail he died dangling from a rope
A victim of years of police harassment he was one born on life's precarious slope
For years the Kelly family were victims of racism by the racist authorities they never really did get a fair go
But what happened to the Kellys is still happening racism has not died as we well know.
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Every shower of rain is welcome it's been two months so they say
Since it last rained in Maleny and it's raining there today
And the farmer he feels happy though his paddocks looking bare
And he thanks the God rainmaker that some rain he now can spare.
...